


Long Distance

by clandestine7



Series: Long Distance [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Canon Continuation taking the events of S1 into account while working in some of S2, College-Age, Friendship, Growing Up, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, non Olympic-track Haru
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 131,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clandestine7/pseuds/clandestine7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin leaves for college in America, but he pays Haruka one last-minute visit before he goes. Their relationship progresses in the lulls between academic terms, in the glimpses Haruka takes of the future, in the two steps forward taken for every step back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crybaby (Farewell)

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaand this is the last thing I have over at ffn that I'm moving over here. There are two chapters out so far, so I'm putting the first one here today, the second either tomorrow or the day after depending on how busy Christmas is, and then *hopefully* I'll have the third ready to post the day after that. Basically I'm playing mind games with myself and hoping I finish on time.

They said goodbye to Rin two days ago, even though he isn't leaving until tomorrow morning.

_So Rin-chan'll have time to pack_ , Nagisa had said, while they had been planning the party the week before, in Haruka's stuffy living room with the fan blasting on high.  _And so he won't cry the day before he has to leave._

The party was to be a surprise, and was to be held at Rin's house.  _We can't make him go home from his own goodbye party,_  Nagisa had reasoned, and so they had called up Kou to help them out with the logistics. She had been all too excited at the prospect, had hopped onto the next train over and barreled into the planning with a fervor that was probably hiding the same sense of sadness they all felt about the impending goodbye.

Haruka had followed the proceedings detachedly – sitting at the table with the rest of them but taking little part save for the occasional reply when asked his opinion on something. He just hadn't had much to say; the heat had made him lethargic, so he had let thoughts escape him, leaving his head humming with the whir of the fan. He hadn't missed Makoto's glances, but he had pretended to, because the quiet concern there was not something he had wanted to address.

True to Nagisa's expectations, Rin had indeed cried, and Rei had had to jump in and blow out the candles on the cake as the wax had started dripping all over the  _Good luck Rin-chan!_  Nagisa had written out in yellow icing. Makoto had magically procured a pack of tissues, Rin had blubbered about them all being assholes, and Haruka had stood a bit apart as the others crowded around, Nagisa trying to snap shots of Rin with snot dripping from his nose.

He thinks they were all happier to see those tears than they would ever admit – proof that the romantic crybaby Rin of days past had never truly gone far. Though Rin isn't nearly as standoffish now as he was when he first came back from Australia, there is still a constant wall of defense he's ready to spring up at the slightest hint of confrontation, like his pride is always at stake over the most trivial things. Some things, once they get cemented in place, never change.

For those few moments after he had walked through his front door, though, and figured out what the sudden ambush of noise had meant, the watery look on his face had made him seem so much younger. Lips pressed together and nose flared, hands clenched tight into fists as though that would stop the tears from slipping down his chin, he had been twelve years old all over again, the first to cry at their elementary school graduation.

This memory turns into another one – of a young Rin hunched on the ground by a swimming pool, tears of a different sort dripping from his face – and the affection turns sour in Haruka's chest. He sinks down lower in the tub, until the water submerges his chin. He's aware that he's sulking, and that it's childish, but Makoto isn't around to urge him out, so he sits and waits for his fingers to prune.

He tries to pretend he doesn't feel it, but the prospect of Rin leaving again worries him, just a bit. The helplessness he had felt at watching things spiral so far out of hand between them still hasn't fully left him, and he doesn't know if he'd be able to go through it a second time.

_You better not stop swimming when I'm gone_ , Rin had told him, after the others had been corralled out the door by Makoto and Kou – who, now that Haruka thinks back on it, probably had very specific intentions in mind, leaving them alone like that.

Except Haruka hadn't known what they were hoping to accomplish. Like he and Rin had ever been good at talking, and what were they supposed to discuss now? It had grown dark, there was a train to catch, and the others wouldn't leave without him, or without saying one more goodbye to Rin at the station.

_I won't,_ Haruka had said, because it had been easiest to follow Rin's lead and avoid saying anything important. But it hadn't felt right.

Rin had bit his lip and looked away, arms folding across his chest. The blotchy redness in his nose and cheeks had finally faded, and he was clenching his jaw like he had things he couldn't decide if he wanted to say or not. _You have to be at your best when I race you_ , he had bit out, shoulders rising ever higher in that defensive posture of his.

_You'll be back in two months_ _._

_I know that!_

The agitation on Rin's face had been proof enough that Haruka had hit the nail on the head. But now he had a flustered Rin on his hands, and for once he hadn't wanted things to go the typical way – him closing off so the words would roll off of him and Rin getting more and more worked up as a result – so he had foregone thinking and pressed his hand over Rin's mouth to save himself the headache.

_I won't stop swimming._

Rin had spluttered, had gone wide-eyed and speechless. Haruka had waited, no plan in mind for what was supposed to happen next. Rin had spit in his palm a little bit.

After a tense moment, Rin's eyebrows had furrowed together, and he had covered Haruka's hand with his own, pulling it away from his face and holding it there, in the air between them. Nothing important had been addressed, but Rin had cast his eyes down and away, deflated.  _Okay,_  he had said quietly, as though something important had just been settled.

Haruka releases a long sigh, dips his chin so that the water rises above his mouth. He can still feel Rin's hand squeezing his, just for that short moment before he had let go and passed out the door to catch up with the others. Haruka sighs again, blowing bubbles, and ducks beneath the water. Reemerges, flicks his head back and listens to the water splatter against the wall behind him.

The fact that he's so worried is what bothers him the most. Does he really trust Rin so little? Does so much of himself depend upon who Rin is, how Rin might or might not change when he's gone? That thought digs at him, leaves an uncomfortable niggling in his arms, his legs, his gut. He tries to ignore it.

Sometime later, once his fingers and toes have long gone wrinkly, the doorbell rings. Once, then twice, then three-four-five in rapid succession. He turns his head toward the bathroom door. The only person he can imagine coming over this late is Makoto, but Makoto knows he can just come in through the back, so he never rings the bell that frantically.

Then he hears the sound of his name being called, the familiar demanding tone – annoyance and arrogance and a hint of urgency, all rolled into one jagged sound. The water goes splashing against the tiles as he stands up. He foregoes toweling off, leaves a trail of puddles behind him as he pads down the hall, to the door, yanks it open.

"Rin–"

Rin crosses the threshold and collides with him with enough force to knock a cough from his lungs. He stumbles backwards, and Rin stumbles with him. They almost fall over, but Rin steadies them both – arms finding their way around Haruka and pulling him close, clinging fast. And then they are still.

Night air comes in through the doorway, tinged with summer but cool on Haruka's wet skin. He's warm though, where Rin is pressed against him. Rin is pressed against him. Why?

When Rin speaks, the words are muffled in the crook of Haruka's neck.

"Don't laugh."

Haruka's mind is uncharacteristically blank. He can smell Rin's hair, feel Rin's body, had just felt Rin's mouth moving against his skin. The best he can manage is, "I'm not."

"Don't say I'm stupid."

"I won't."

Rin's fingertips dig hard into his shoulders. His nose presses into Haruka's neck. "Why are you all wet?"

"I was taking a bath."

Rin lets out a ragged chuckle. "In your fucking swimsuit." Then he makes a squeaky sound, and Haruka thinks he might feel something warm and wet drip onto his neck. "Sorry," Rin whispers.

In his shock, Haruka becomes conscious of his arms hanging uselessly at his sides. He brings them up slowly, tentatively rests his hands on Rin's back. He knows it was the right thing to do when the arms around him tighten.

He can't stop thinking that Rin's clothes must be getting wet, that there must be something else he can do that doesn't involve standing dumbfounded and incompetent and dripping onto the floor. But Rin breaks into stifled sobs, and he seems to want nothing more than to be able to hold on to Haruka as his body starts to tremble and he loses control over the volume of his voice. And so Haruka forgets about Rin's clothes, focuses only on the feeling of holding Rin and of being held, and of how okay those feelings are for him.

* * *

They sit on Haruka's bed in Haruka's clothes, backs against the wall, munching from a bag of chips set between them. The silence has stretched long, but it hasn't been heavy. Still, Haruka's questions are getting too numerous to keep to himself.

"Your flight," he says, surprised for a moment by how loud his voice sounds. He looks over at Rin, who continues to stare despondently down at the mattress. "It's early, isn't it?"

Rin pulls his hand from the bag, pops a chip into his mouth. Chews slowly, loudly. "Yeah," he says, after he swallows. He tips his head back, rests it against the wall. "Is it stupid that I don't really want to go?"

Haruka isn't sure that Rin is actually looking for an answer, but he wonders the same thing. "Why not?"

Rin doesn't respond. He has his face twisted up in that severe way of his – sharp brows, sharp frown, eyes focused intently at the ceiling.

_Why are you here?_  Haruka wants to ask.  _Did you visit anyone else? Why did you come to see me?_ "It'll only be two months," he says.

Rin tilts his head to look at him, musters a small smile. "You keep saying that." Then his smile grows, takes a teasing lilt. "Maybe you're trying to convince yourself. If you're gonna miss me, you should just say it."

Haruka gives him a blank stare that is well-practiced. He can feel it in his chest, though, has been moping over it all day, probably longer if he'll admit it to himself – there is no question that he is going to miss Rin.

Rin is loud and obnoxious and tactless and oftentimes when he's around, Haruka wishes that he wasn't. But he's their Rin. He is a part of the group; he is necessary. They've already experienced being without him once, and for Haruka it had been like missing a limb whose function he couldn't quite pinpoint, other than it was somehow necessary, and that seeing it detached was discomforting to nearly unbearable levels.

But Rin also has dreams. Has solid, fleshed-out goals he's reaching for, and to even wish for a moment that he would set those aside for the sake of Haruka's ill-placed anxiety… Haruka has never really thought of himself as selfish, until recently. Childish would be an even better word.

"Let me stay here tonight."

Haruka blinks, refocuses on Rin, whose expression has lost most of its humor. "But you have to –"

"Leave early, yeah, I will," Rin says, waving a hand dismissively. To solidify his point, he crawls around Haruka, flops down onto his stomach on the bed. "You won't even hear me get up. Unless you're seriously gonna make me go home this late."

Haruka sighs, though in all honesty he's glad that Rin has made his decision so easy. "Fine."

He tosses the chip bag onto his desk, gets to his feet and crosses the room, turns off the light. The moon is nearing full, though, shines right through his window and makes everything take on a silvery edge, bright and visible as he crosses back to the bed.

Rin has rolled aside for him, has his head pillowed on his arm. The severe, pensive look is back on his face, and Haruka hesitates for a moment before climbing onto the mattress. He crosses his legs, looks down at Rin.

"You want to go. It…" He lets out a breath. "It won't be Australia."

Rin avoids his eyes. But his frown lessens, just a bit. "Yeah, I know."

Haruka nods, because that's enough. He settles down onto his side, and Rin's eyes are suddenly on him, watching.

Being close to Rin is nothing out of the ordinary, but being close in this way is. The space between them is minimal – two hands' breadths, maybe. Rin's eyes aren't the deep cranberry color they usually are in this light – they're just dark splashed with silver. But just as intent, as they hold Haruka's gaze.

Haruka's not sure how this proximity makes him feel – not uncomfortable, but maybe a bit wary. He's slept in Makoto's bed more times than he can count, has even had Nagisa fall asleep slouched against him in the train a few times. Neither had left him with the strange undercurrent of feeling he has now – like he's discovered something valuable, something meant to be kept close and quiet, but that is also very fragile. He notices, in a vague sort of way, that he can't remember any other time he's seen Rin so still for so long. If he wanted to, he could really take a look at him – at Rin's forehead, his nose, his mouth, his chin, his cheek; at each unique jut and dip and slope that makes Rin's face his own and no one else's.

"Why did you come to see me?" he hears himself asking, before he's even aware of the thought passing through his brain.

Rin's expression tightens. He looks a little pissed off, and a little embarrassed. "Are you serious?"

Haruka blinks. He's pretty sure he had sounded serious enough.

"Because I'm gonna miss you, you stupid idiot," Rin says. His eyes narrow. "What? Don't look so fucking surprised, jeez."

Haruka doesn't know what he had expected to hear, but Rin's blatant honestly leaves a touch of warmth spreading through his chest. He can almost feel the beginnings of a smile trying to take to his lips. "You should sleep."

Rin's eyebrows disappear into his hair for a moment, then he huffs out a sardonic laugh. "Yeah, okay, you're welcome."

"Thanks. You should sleep."

"S'too hot."

"You should still sleep."

Rin makes an exasperated sound and rolls over, leaving Haruka with a view of his back. "Fine, god, shut up."

Haruka finally allows himself that smile.

He closes his eyes, but he isn't tired. He doesn't know how long he lies staring at the backs of his eyelids, wondering if Rin has fallen asleep yet, if he will really wake up later to find that Rin has already left.

When sleep finally starts to tug at him, his head is full of sluggish thoughts of the ocean and airplanes, and it's only very faintly that he hears Rin stir. The bed creaks and dips slightly, and then something brushes against his cheek. But the next second it's gone, might have been a breeze through the window, or his sleep-drugged imagination. Something bumps against his knees, though, and stays there. His eyelids are too heavy to open, his conscious thoughts slipping into nothingness, the bits of half-dreams taking over.

Rin's knees are solid.

Rin is still there.

* * *

When he wakes up, his first thought is that he is alone. The blanket – the part he isn't lying on top of – has been pulled up around him, and he opens his eyes to confirm his suspicions.

It's the dusky dark before sunrise and Rin is gone. Haruka starts to push the blanket off, but his hand bumps against something lost in the folds, and he curls his fingers around what feels like a thick piece of string. He brings the object close to his face, stares at it blearily for a moment before noticing that a small part of it catches what faint strains of light are available.

Rin's necklace – the one with the black leather cord and the shark tooth strung through it. Haruka wonders how it had fallen off, and if it's too late to try to give it back.

He pushes himself up, glances out the window. The sky is more grey than black, the stars are disappearing. From there, his gaze skims over his desk. His clothes – the ones Rin had changed into – are folded on top. He wonders how long ago Rin left, and how he could have possibly been so quiet.

His eyes sting from fatigue; it's obvious that he hadn't slept for very long.  _Two months_ , he thinks to himself as he lies back down. Longer, if he's going to be honest. Ten weeks, Rin had said.

He pulls the blanket over himself, nestles back into the warmth. Holds onto Rin's necklace, and feels sleep coming quickly this time.

_Two months_ , he thinks, running his thumb over the tooth. Two months.

 


	2. Overbearing (Winter Break - part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far so good with staying on schedule. If I don't manage to publish chapter 3 tomorrow, I should at least manage to finish writing it, which only leaves editing to do. Hope you had great Christmases if you celebrate, and great holiday seasons or just great...Decembers otherwise!
> 
> Quick note - I always have Haruka refer to Gou as 'Kou' because he was kind enough to do so in the anime. How thoughtful of him.

Haruka watches as Nagisa lets out a wail and drops his face into his notebook, startling the peace that has long settled over the study session in Haruka's living room.

"Rei-chan, I can't do it," Nagisa says, words muffled in the pages. "Show me your answers."

Rei swats away the hand that is inching toward his notebook. "Nagisa-kun, you can't look at my answers during the exam, and you can't now. Language is an instinct; you must trust yours. This is merely a matter of writing what comes most naturally to mind."

"The only thing that comes naturally to mind is a bunch of gibberish," Nagisa says, raising his head and pinning Rei with pleading eyes. Rei pushes up his glasses, swoops lower over his notebook, and continues writing.

Nagisa swivels his eyes over to Haruka and Makoto, who are across the table from him, heavy college textbooks open before them – though Haruka has his elbow in his book, and his chin in his hand. "Haru-chan, Mako-chan, you took this test last year."

Makoto gives a little laugh, marks a sentence in his book with his finger and copies a few phrases into his notebook. "You know I was never good at English."

Haruka, who has never been good at English either, and has found alternately watching Nagisa pester Rei and Makoto fill up blank pages in his notebook to be infinitely more amusing than studying, simply lets out a sigh and lies down on the floor. "I don't care about economics."

"Haru!" Makoto scolds gently, at the same time that Nagisa says, "You don't have to tell me about economics if you tell me how to conjugate English verbs, Haru-chan."

Haruka closes his eyes and turns his head away from them. Makoto shakes his shoulder, but is ignored. The heater by the doorway has left the room warm, almost stuffy but not quite, and the floor becomes more comfortable with each passing moment.

Nagisa groans. "I need Gou-chan."

"Gou-san isn't very good at English," Rei points out.

"Well, if you're so good then help me out, Rei-chan."

"I have been trying to help you. However, you seem to be under the impression that that involves you trying to steal my notebook, which will not help you learn anything in the long run."

There is a quiet thud; Haruka thinks that Nagisa has dropped his face back into his notebook.

"Rin's coming back tomorrow, you can ask him them," Makoto says. The smile is audible in his voice, and Haruka opens his eyes to stare at the wall.

The ten-and-some weeks are up. A bubble of anticipation stirs in his chest.

"Ah," Nagisa sighs in the background, "I hope he brought us all something back. Kidding, Rei-chan! As long as he brought his brain to help me with English, I'll be happy."

Haruka wonders when Rin is going to want to race him – and almost manages to give himself a self-depreciating frown, because what a selfish thing to think about first.

He also wonders, for some unfathomable reason, if Rin looks any different. Does going to a foreign country do that? The only instance he has to compare with had resulted in a change of staggering proportions. It hasn't been so long this time, though it feels like it has – things are so much quieter without Rin, and with Nagisa still in high school and not always around to fill that silence.

His thoughts steal upstairs, to the necklace that's been sitting in his desk drawer for the past ten weeks. It hadn't felt like the right place to put it – who keeps a necklace among pens and paperclips? – but he hadn't known where else it could have gone.

"Haru," Makoto says, and Haruka turns his head slightly. Makoto smiles down at him. "You should really keep studying. The exam's on Monday."

"Don't care about economics."

Makoto chuckles. Picks up Haruka's textbook and places it on the floor next to his head. "Care about it a little?"

Haruka ends up using the book as a pillow, cheek pressed to the cool pages. The quiet sounds of studying fill the room once again – pages turning, pens tapping, the soft clatter as pencils are set down on the table, the occasional sigh or muted huff of frustration. Rei muttering under his breath. Haruka lets these sounds fog his mind, lets them lead him into a doze.

And then the doorbell rings, startling him awake.

"Gou-chan's here!" Nagisa cries, jumping to his feet. He trips over Rei's backpack, ignores Rei's splutters of discontent, and rockets out of the room, all of which Haruka watches sideways and through the table legs.

He peels his cheek from his book, leans up slightly. He hears Nagisa's feet pounding against the floor, hears the front door open.

"Gou-cha – Ah!  _Rin-chan!_ "

In the beat of silence that follows, the snap of Rei's pencil lead is audible. Haruka sits up straight, rigid, the sleep kicked clean from his brain.

"Surely he didn't just say…" Rei trails off, a dubious furrow to his brows as he starts to twist around toward the hallway.

Haruka isn't sure he believes it either, but in between the more animated sounds of Nagisa and Kou's voices, he hears the unmistakable low tones of another. The anticipation sharpens in his chest, pulled taut, restless.

"I thought he wasn't coming back until tomorrow," Makoto says, and starts to stand, but pauses when Nagisa lets out a loud laugh. Haruka hears a splutter, and then feet pounding back down the hall.

"Guys, look!" Nagisa cries, flying around the corner and tugging Rin with him. "It's Rin-chan!"

Rin grabs onto the door frame to keep from colliding with Nagisa. He looks very harassed, eyes wild and cheeks flushed. "Christ, Nagisa!" he's saying, "I sat on a plane for fifteen hours, you're gonna fucking kill me." His hair has been pulled back, his teeth are bared, he sounds grumpy and grousing. All familiar things.

_He's back_.

"It's a good thing you're getting exercise, then," comes Kou's voice, and she appears, ducking beneath Rin's arm and sending the others a smile as she enters the room.

Makoto lets out a delighted laugh. "Rin! I thought your flight was tomorrow!"

Rin looks at Makoto, absently tries to tug his arm from Nagisa's grasp without success. "Yeah, well, surprise," he says, giving up trying to get away from Nagisa and instead stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Gou told me she lied to you all and said it was tomorrow."

Kou looks completely unabashed as she settles down at a free side of the table, between Makoto and Rei. "Surprises are fun," she says with a grin, and pulls out a plastic bag from her backpack. "Surprise, I brought melon bread."

This steals Nagisa's attention, and he abandons Rin in the doorway. Rin frowns after him, and in the sudden commotion over the melon bread his eyes find Haruka's. His posture stays relaxed but something flickers across his face – it's almost like he tries to look away but can't figure out how to, except the next second his eyes are indeed somewhere else, looking a bit over all of their heads, a showy frown of the mightily beleaguered across his lips.

"Rin-san, have you even been home yet?" Rei asks. "You seem to have put significantly less attention toward your attire than usual."

Rin's eyes dart over to Rei. "Yo, Speedo Glasses, watch it," he says, but the glower doesn't last long. He steps into the room, rubs wearily at one of his shoulders. "I was home for five maybe minutes, but Gou said I had to come here to help her with her English homework."

"You can help me and Rei-chan then, too!" Nagisa crows around a mouthful of bread. Rei gives him a slightly affronted look – talking with a full mouth is most likely the very opposite of beautiful – and insists, "I don't need help."

Rin adopts another tormented expression as he sits down across from his sister, Haruka nearest his left shoulder and Nagisa his right. "Are you kidding me? I'm not helping any of you, it's your own damn homework. I just sat on a plane for fifteen  _hours_."

"Two planes," Kou says.

Rin rolls his eyes. "Whatever. Jeez, it's hot in here." He unzips his jacket – a track jacket, hardly fitting for the weather outside – and flings it into a corner. Then, contrary to his griping, he peers down at Nagisa's notebook, points his finger at something. "It's  _'lost,'_  not  _'losed.'_  If they're irregular you can't just use the normal rules."

"Thanks, Rin-chan!" Nagisa says, erasing what he had written and scribbling out the correct answer. "But how do I know if they're irregular?"

Rin tugs the tie out of his hair, shakes his head. "You just have to memorize them."

"They all seem irregular to me."

Rin shrugs. Gathers his hair back up and ties it neatly against the back of his neck. "Just memorize them," he says again. Nagisa tries to push the notebook nearer to him, and he pushes it back. "First do all of them and then I'll look at it," he grumbles.

"Aye aye, Rin-chan!"

Rin winces, sends a very bemused look across the table at Kou, who sticks her tongue out at him. Then he lets out a sigh, eyes closing and head dropping slightly. Haruka can see the fatigue on his face, the weariness that seems to pull at all corners.

"Haru. You have a book crease on your cheek."

Haruka blinks, and Rin turns his head slightly, opens his eyes to look at him sidelong. A smirk takes to Rin's lips, and Haruka realizes he's been caught staring. He raises a hand toward his face.

"Other side," Rin says, and then he snorts. "You look stupid." He reaches for some of the melon bread in the middle of the table, pretends to ignore Haruka's frown.

Haruka hears Makoto snigger, and elbows him in the side. The taut feeling in his chest begins to unravel. Calmed, soothed.

The others take mercy on Rin and the bags underneath his eyes and return to their own work. Haruka hasn't bothered picking his textbook up off the floor, so he instead picks bits off the melon bread and eats them slowly. Nagisa blazes through his problems in no time and pushes the notebook back toward Rin.

"Okay, Rin-chan. Oh, are you asleep?"

Everyone looks up.

"No," Rin mutters. If he hadn't spoken, it would have been hard to know. Eyes closed, back hunched and head dipping toward his chest, he looks as though he could have easily nodded off.

"He says he couldn't sleep on the plane," Kou says.

Rin furrows his eyebrows. "There were like five damn babies on that flight. One stopped crying and another would start. It was fucking torture."

"Be nice," Kou chastises. "They're babies."

"It's not like I did anything to them," Rin says. He opens his eyes, frowns. "And they didn't have to cry so much."

Kou smirks, for a moment in startling likeness to her brother. "I don't think you have the liberty to complain about anyone crying, oh sentimental brother of mine."

Rin splutters, and even Haruka chuckles amidst the laughter that rings out. Rin sends him a quick glare, then stuffs a piece of melon bread into his mouth, looking put out. But Haruka sees the corner of his mouth pull up in a reluctant grin, sees him try to keep his expression cloudy when Nagisa nudges his shoulder. And Haruka looks away, feels the fight against a smile begin on his own face as well.

* * *

Kou and Rin have to leave before nightfall to make it home for dinner in time. Nagisa and Rei pack up to leave with them, backs stiff and eyes tired from studying. The light is dimming outside when they all crowd out the door, and everyone buttons their coats snug, tighten scarves around their necks.

"Haru," Rin says. He stands in front of the others, hands in his pockets and frown on his face. He doesn't have a scarf, doesn't have a warm coat, hunches his shoulders against the cold.

Haruka waits in the doorway, Makoto beside him.

Rin looks a bit to the side. "I'm sleeping tomorrow. I'll race you Monday – Ow!" He looks wide-eyed at Kou, who has just smacked him in the arm. "What?!"

"You're not going to be useless all day tomorrow."

Nagisa sniggers in the background, and Rin's expression turns indignant. "Fifteen hours! I'm tired! And I just had all my exams!"

"Me and Nagisa-kun and Rei-kun all have our exams coming up too," Kou says, though behind her Rei comments that "Rin-san's must have been more intensive than ours will be."

"They were  _very_  inten–" Rin starts to agree, but Kou cuts him off.

"Haruka-senpai has exams too. How do you know he'll be free on Monday?"

Rin falters, snaps his mouth shut. He turns back to Haruka. "Oh yeah. I forgot."

"I don't have any exams on Friday," Haruka says, aware in a distant way of the irony – that the race seems to be the first thing Rin thought of also. "I'll race you then."

"Fine. Yeah. That's good." Rin nods.

"Okay."

Rin nods again. Pulls a smirk onto his face. "You're going down."

Kou rolls her eyes, takes her brother's arm and starts to steer him away. She sends a last wave over her shoulder at Haruka and Makoto. "See you guys later. Good luck with exams!"

"You too," Makoto says, waving back.

Haruka nods, raises a hand. Rin and Kou bicker as they head away, Nagisa and Rei tagging along behind. Kou unwinds her scarf and starts to give it to Rin, but he pushes it back, voice rising in words that Haruka can't quite make out, but in a tone that suggests he doesn't want something that is pink with orange polka dots around his neck. Haruka watches Kou lean up and pull Rin's hood over his head instead.

"Haru, come on, it's cold," Makoto says, and Haruka steps back inside so Makoto can close the door. "He seems to be doing fine," Makoto says, once the cold has been sealed out, smiling in that soft, knowing way of his.

"Yeah," Haruka agrees, and moves around him, starts to head back down the hall.

Makoto catches up easily, long strides and loud steps. "So, think you'll be able to care about economics now?" he asks, when they turn back into the living room.

Haruka gives him a bemused look.  _What's that supposed to mean?_  he thinks – doesn't bother to say it out loud because he knows Makoto will be able to decipher it from his expression. And indeed, Makoto's smile is still soft and still knowing, if not a little devious. Haruka doesn't even try to understand where the last part comes from.

He toes his book shut where it lies on the floor. "No."

* * *

There was never a chance that Haruka would stop swimming – he knows Rin knows this, and knows Rin knew it two months ago. When Haruka took out a membership to the local rec center after graduating high school, Rin did the same because he had had those extra three months to pass before school would start for him overseas.

Haruka would swim in the early morning, body used to early risings for school, whereas Rin would come a couple hours later, after his daily run. Sometimes, they would bump into each other in passing – Haruka leaving, Rin just arriving – but oftentimes they never saw each other at the pool. And then school had gotten into full swing and Haruka had stopped coming regularly – sometimes in the late afternoon after catching the train home from school, sometimes weekend mornings, and then even the sometimes became rare.

Rin was one reason to look forward to winter break, but having time to swim was another.

And when Haruka arrives at the rec center Friday morning, Rin is waiting out front, leaning against the handrail.

"Yo," Rin greets with a grin. He's dressed warmer today – a true winter jacket, though his scarf hangs useless and decorative over his shoulders. His eyes look a little bright, a side effect of the cold. Haruka feels his own smarting in a way that only a long walk in the winter can do.

"Hey," Haruka says, coming level with him. Rin pushes off the railing, and their shoulders jostle as they head to the entrance doors. It's a little bit strange – Haruka can't tell if it feels like there were two months of separation between them or not.

Heat washes over his face as they enter the lobby, and he tugs his scarf loose. A balding, middle-aged man behind the front desk looks up from some paperwork, grins broadly when his eyes fall upon the pair of them.

"Mornin' Nanase! I guess you're on break now, eh? And Matsuoka, thought I'd never see ya again! How long are ya back for?"

"Hiya, Kaji-san," Rin says, grinning as well and speeding up to get to the desk. "Just three weeks."

"I'm using my guest pass," Haruka announces – because Rin had decided that it wasn't worth paying for a year-round membership if he would be gone the majority of it.

"Sure thing. Hey Matsuoka, I might be able to let you use the facilities for free these next few weeks in return for some on-air mentions once you win that gold medal, how about it?"

Rin laughs, catches the towel Kaji-san tosses his way, and the one he tosses at Haruka as well. Haruka frowns as Rin then pushes it into his hands, but Rin pays him no attention, leaning against the front desk.

"I'll take you up on that, Kaji-san. I'll be here tomorrow morning, so you better let me in."

Kaji-san laughs, waves them down the hall toward the locker rooms. "Yeah yeah, ya better be grateful about it. Typical Friday morning," he calls after them as they head away. "Pretty empty! Just the regulars!"

Haruka and Rin enter the locker room in silence. Change in silence as well, though when they take off their pants and both have their swim suits on underneath, Rin does let out a snort, and Haruka tips his face away to hide his own amusement.

Friday morning is usually the quietest day of the week, the lanes laid out for laps and mostly empty. Haruka knows who the regulars Kaji-san had mentioned are, so he is already anticipating the shout of recognition that comes as he and Rin enter the pool room.

"Haru-chan!" shrieks a child's voice, the sound amplified by the high, sloping ceiling, and out of the corner of his eye Haruka sees Rin jump.

A young boy splashes up the steps of the shallow end and starts to run over, bright yellow floaters on his arms, short bangs plastered to his forehead. "No running near the pool," Haruka warns him, and the boy transitions immediately into a quick walk, feet slapping loudly against the cement. He barrels into Haruka, tries to wrap short arms around his hips.

"Haru-chan! You came back!"

Rin makes a confused sound off to the side, and Haruka schools the impending smile off of his face. He places a hand on the boy's head, tips it back so the boy is grinning up at him. "Yeah. You lost another tooth."

The boy's smile widens, and he sticks a finger into his mouth to pull his lip back, revealing a gaping hole up top and center. "Yeah! I lost it when I was eating chips! It's weird 'cause when I eat now I can't bite things there, but I like to stick my tongue through it so it's okay. Hey, who's that?"

He releases Haruka to point a finger at Rin, whose forehead is wrinkled into the most comic expression Haruka has ever seen.

"Hiro, it isn't nice to point," comes a softly reproving voice, and with a quiet splash the boy's mother lifts herself out of the pool behind them. She removes her goggles, wrings the water out of her ponytail and gives Haruka a warm smile, faint age lines by her eyes crinkling. "Good morning, Nanase-kun. You must be on winter break now, too. Hiro got off last week."

"Good morning, Ishikawa-san," Haruka says, bowing his head. Hiro peels away, darts over to take his mother's hand. Before another word can be spoken, he points the finger back at Rin and pipes up, "Hey, are you as good at swimming as Haru-chan?"

"Hiro," Ishikawa-san says in warning, but an indulgent grin breaks out over Rin's face. He crosses his arms and puffs out his chest.

"You bet I am. I'm  _better_  than him."

Hiro's eyes widen, and the finger drops. "No way! Prove it!"

"You got it. We're gonna race right now."

Haruka can't decide whether he wants to roll his eyes or sigh, and both urges cancel each other out. "Hiro," he says instead. "Do you want to help us with something?"

Hiro's lets go of his mother's hand, clenches his fists in anticipation. "Yeah!"

Haruka sends Ishikawa-san a questioning glance, and she smiles and waves her hand in a 'just go ahead' motion. During the summer Haruka would sometimes give Hiro swimming lessons in the shallow end – a delight for Hiro, and an invaluable service for a single mother who couldn't spend every moment of her time looking after a rowdy kindergartener.

"You can tell us who wins the race," Haruka tells Hiro, who lets out a shout of delight and bounds back over to reclaim Haruka's hand. Haruka jerks his chin so Rin will fall into step with him, and the three of them head for the deep end of the pool as Ishikawa-san heads for the bleachers.

"You look heavier than Haru-chan, so I think you're gonna lose," Hiro says to Rin, feet slap-slap-slapping as he works to match their strides. Rin splutters, and Haruka, on the verge of laughing, clears his throat and explains to Hiro what he's going to have to do – stand near the edge and look to see whose hand touches first when they swim back.

"No lying, okay kid?" Rin says, heading over to the center lane. He pulls on his goggles, snaps the strap against the back of his head. "You can't pick Haru just 'cause you like him better."

Hiro stands up straight, chin raised importantly. "I'll tell the truth, promise!"

Haruka pulls on his own goggles and crouches into position next to Rin, watches his reflection ripple in the water. "Tell us when to start, Hiro."

"Start!"

Haruka dives right in, barely hears the sound of surprise Rin makes. He hears Rin hit the water a moment later, though, and the gap closes quickly – Rin has always been the stronger diver. A thrill settles into his arms and spreads quickly through his body as he slips through the water, invigorating yet paradoxically calming, sharpening his focus. He knows the feel of Rin's ripples, the way Rin's strokes disturb the water and create currents, can sense the grin he knows is on Rin's face.

He's a bit ahead by the turn, but this is where Rin pulls even, because he's also always been the stronger turner. Haruka, however, is more agile in the water as a whole. He takes to the straight-away like an arrow. The water parts for him, brushes gently past and lets him through. Rin's ripples are right beside him. It's neck and neck.

His lungs start to burn – a sting that races through him, electrifies him, makes his muscles ache and work harder. He sees the wall and doesn't let himself breathe, knowing that a breath could make all the difference in their times. He knows that beside him, Rin won't be taking another breath until the end, either.

His hand touches the wall, and he throws his head out of the water, gasping for air. Rin is in the next lane over doing the same, and though their eyes can't meet through the tint of their goggles, they look at each other, though neither can say who won. Chests heaving, they simultaneously look up at Hiro.

The boy's fists are clenched, his eyebrows screwed up in concentration. "I don't know," he finally says. He looks from Haruka to Rin and back. "I think it's a tie." He looks a bit let down – like he messed up an important task – so Haruka hoists himself out of the pool to sit next to him.

"That's okay," he says, taking off his goggles. "Sometimes nobody wins. Ties are okay."

Hiro gives a tentative smile, then looks past Haruka to Rin. "You're really fast!"

Rin gives a breathless laugh, arms resting on the poolside and goggles around his neck. "I told you, didn't I?"

"Haru-chan, can he teach me too?"

"I don't know," Haruka says, looking away from Rin, who looks far too pleased at Hiro's compliment. The aftereffects of exertion tingle through him, the burn in his chest fading as his breathing evens back to normal. "He comes later than I do, but you can ask him."

"But you'll still teach me, right?" Hiro asks with wide, insistent eyes.

"For the next couple of weeks."

"Good. 'Cause I go to swimming lessons now but it's more fun with you, so you have to come every day and teach me. I wanna know how to do all –"

Hiro stops when his mother calls his name. She's standing by the entrance to the women's locker room, holding up a towel. "Oh, I have to go to Grandma's now so Mom can go to work. Bye, Haru-chan. Bye," he adds, waving at Rin, before he patters off to his mother, who drapes the towel over his head and lets him drag her into the locker room. She sends Haruka a parting wave as she goes, and then it is quiet.

"That was interesting."

Haruka looks back at Rin, who is grinning.

"What?"

Rin gives a chuckle, expression gaining a familiar teasing lilt. He tilts his head so that his cheek rests against his arm. "Nanase Haruka, friend of mothers and children alike. I never would've guessed."

Haruka shrugs. "We swam at the same time during the summer."

"I think he was lying. I think I won."

Haruka knows he's joking, but it brings an important matter to mind. "You haven't been practicing your free."

Rin's eyebrows lift in surprise. Haruka knows he's right.

"You should've beaten me."

Rin's surprise melts away, and he's left looking a bit guilty. "I've been practicing it. I've just been focusing on butterfly more."

"It's fine," Haruka says with a shrug, not wanting to sound accusing. "I just noticed."

"You still don't know I didn't win.  _Technically_  I would have. You had an unfair start. The kid didn't do a countdown."

"You had a late start. It's your fault."

Rin  _tsk_ -s. "Whatever."

Haruka picks up his goggles, slips back into the pool. "I won't tell anyone you lost," he says, pulling the goggles back over his eyes.

"But the water told me I won."

It's about the most un-Rin-like thing Haruka has ever heard him say, and he feels his eyebrows twist into something incredulous. He almost forgets to keep treading water. "Huh?"

"You're not the only one the water talks to," Rin says, treading water now also.

It takes another moment of incredulous staring, but – oh, he gets it. Rin's teasing him. The corners of Rin's lips twitch, as though in confirmation.

"The water doesn't talk to me," Haruka says, aware that he sounds petulant and hoping that Rin doesn't tease him about this too. But sure enough, Rin sniggers. For some unfathomable reason Haruka has a difficult time maintaining his frown.

Rin notices this as well, and reaches over the lane divider to push him by the shoulder. "You're allowed to smile, you know," he says. He looks triumphant, like he's just achieved some great victory.

Before Haruka can deny that Rin's childishness would goad a smile out of him, Rin pulls his goggles on and curves gracefully away from the wall. Haruka frowns after him – a real frown this time, which is a natural reaction to most things Rin does.

Which means that everything is normal.

He has the pool and he has Rin, two things his life has been sorely lacking, and he sets off after the latter. And sure enough, once he closes the distance between them he feels something unspoken pass through the lane divider, and they are off on another impromptu race.

* * *

"You've gotta be shitting me!"

Haruka comes up beside Rin, who has stopped in front of the exit doors, sounding distressed. Through the glass, Haruka can see a steady rain falling. The gray sky from earlier has clouded over; there are already puddles in the parking lot.

"Did you bring an umbrella?" Rin asks him.

Haruka glances over. He doesn't mind the rain too much – water is water – but by the frown on Rin's face he can tell that he'd be going alone if he stepped outside now. "No."

"Kaji-san," Rin says, turning around. "D'you have an umbrella we can borrow?"

"Eh? Ya know what, I actually do." He ducks out of sight for a moment, reemerges with a black umbrella that he holds out over the desk.

"Oh, are you serious?" Rin's face lights up and he heads over to take it. "Aren't you gonna need it?"

"Nah, I got my wife's with me today 'cause I left that one here a couple weeks ago. Just bring it back soon."

"Kaji-san, you're a real lifesaver, you know that?" Rin says, and Kaji-san waves them off again, though not without a: "Just remember my TV mentions, ya really owe me now!"

Once they're outside beneath the overhang, Rin hands Haruka the umbrella so he can loop his scarf – which he really had apparently worn only for the sake of accessory – around his neck. "I thought the rain meant it was supposed to get warmer or something," he grumbles, tugging the scarf far enough away from his neck that he can burrow his chin into it.

Haruka unfolds the umbrella, holds it up so it will shield both of them. "Don't know. Did you walk?"

Rin pulls his ponytail – the ends still damp – out of the folds of his scarf, casts a heavy look out at the rain. "Yeah, but I'll take the train back."

And so they step out into the rain. Drops patters loudly against the umbrella. The hand Haruka has on the handle goes cold quickly, but he doesn't mind all that much. The air is fresh; he relishes the smell as it fills his lungs. Rin's shoulder bumps into his every now and then.

"That kid calls you Haru-chan," Rin says, after they've walked a block. He sounds amused.

"Yeah. He came up with it on his own."

"He's like a not-really-but-kind-of Nagisa. I like him already."

Haruka frowns bemusedly at him, and realizes in the grin that Rin sends back at him that this is exactly what Rin had wanted. Rin's good mood is rubbing off on him; he's taking Rin's bait.

They reach a crosswalk, wait for a couple cars to pass through. "You really teach him how to swim?" Rin asks him.

"I did over the summer," Haruka says. They step into the street, avoiding the water that's starting to fill the gutter. "He just wears the floaters when his mom's doing laps."

Rin lets out a hum. It's a pensive sound, and Haruka hears the catch in it – tension, or some kind of irritation. When Rin's words come, they are slow and wary.

"Haru…you don't regret it at all?"

They reach the other side of the road. Their shoulders collide as they step up onto the sidewalk, as Haruka turns a puzzled expression toward Rin.

"I mean not swimming anymore," Rin says. "I mean –" and he falters, and his words come tumbling: "I know you swim but like, for a team where you can swim all the time. You were scouted and everything, don't you feel like you missed out on something big? Like, how can you stand –  _you_ , Haru, how can  _you_  stand not to keep swimming?"

Haruka contains a sigh, though it probably wouldn't be audible over the rain anyway. He dips his chin into his scarf, drops his eyes to the sidewalk. He realizes they're just standing on the street corner, wonders how it happened that Rin got in front of him. He can feel the weight of Rin's gaze on him, wide-eyed and genuinely uncomprehending.

"I still swim."

"I  _know_ you do," Rin says, and he lets out a frustrated breath. His hands move this way and that to punctuate his words – Haruka focuses on them instead of his face. "But like, on teams. In tournaments. You'd help people win. You're –"

"Rin."

"You're a fucking natural, Haru!" Rin blurts, and Haruka feels himself tense. He had known this conversation would come; he had been dreading it. Rin has gone silent – maybe because he's noticed Haruka's body language, maybe not. Haruka looks up, and as soon as he does the stubbornness takes to Rin's features again.

"It's fucking frustrating how good you are," Rin says, eyebrows pulled together, deep furrows between them. "For you to not do anything with that, it's just such a –"

_Such a waste_.

Haruka hears the words hanging in the air, sees them in the sudden widening of Rin's eyes as he catches himself.

"I didn't get scouted by the same school as you," Haruka says.

Rin's face heats up. "That's not what I'm – that's not my point." He is angry, on the verge of stammering.

"Then why are you so bothered?"

"Because you not swimming doesn't feel right! Why the fuck would you choose not to?"

Haruka holds Rin's gaze, wonders how flat his expression looks compared to the fire in Rin's eyes. Rin looks away first.

"You know what I'm going to say," Haruka says. He doesn't want to get defensive, but he hears the tone start to creep into his voice nonetheless. He starts walking again, leaving Rin out in the rain because he doesn't want to have an argument now, not after how easy this morning has been.

_Please respect my decision._

He wonders if Rin will catch those words in the air.

Rin catches up quickly, ducks back beneath the umbrella. "Because you don't care about winning or setting records," he recites sourly. "I know, I get it." A moment later he lets out a heavy sigh and changes his mind: "No I don't. I don't get you."

Haruka glances over. Rin meets his eyes for a second, then looks away and mumbles a quiet, "Sorry."

Haruka isn't sure if it's for not 'getting' him, or if it's for bringing up the conversation in the first place. Either way, he's already forgiven him.

And in all honesty, he does miss swimming on a team. But there's always been one team and one team only that he's been willing to swim for. It grew a bit when Rei came into the picture, but then it was set in stone. He's never swam for any  _thing_  – it's always been people. He knows he wouldn't be able to swim the same for any other team. He wouldn't want to. He couldn't.

Besides, there is normalcy to look forward to now. Now that he no longer has a team to swim for, he gets to be normal. Shed the weight of being a prodigy, a genius, a whatever, from his back.

Rin asks him about school. It isn't really a new topic, but Haruka knows that Rin is trying to steer the conversation to new waters. Haruka talks about how he doesn't like economics, doesn't really like math, honestly doesn't care about school much at all. Rin has no idea what he wants to major in – he went for the swimming, doesn't know what to do about academics even though he's good at pretty much everything.

"School sucks," Rin sums up at one point, though his tone is light, lacking concern.

Still, Haruka has to ask, and he keeps his gaze straight ahead when he does: "Do you like it there?" From the corner of his eye he sees Rin look at him, and then he hears a quiet exhale, something of a laugh.

"Yeah. It's a lot better than Australia."

Haruka nods. He's surprised when Rin throws an arm around his shoulders – the umbrella shakes and tips, and they are showered with water droplets. Haruka lets out a sound of discontent.

"Aw, were you worried about me?" Rin asks, voice close to Haruka's cheek, and Haruka turns his face away.

"That's a stupid question."

"Is that a yes or no?"

"No."

He feels a puff of breath against his neck – another laugh – and Rin lets him go.

"That's cold, Haru."

He makes a noncommittal sound. The station appears up ahead, looking largely empty. They cross the street and sure enough, there is only one other person there, huddled up in his jacket on the opposite platform. The benches are all wet.

They check the schedule as soon as they're under the overhang, and then Rin grabs Haruka's wrist, drags him over to the vending machines. "I think I stepped in a fucking puddle, my socks are soaked," he says by way of explanation that explains very little, because there is no way a drink is going to do anything about his socks.

"You want one?" he asks, popping some coins into the machine, punching the button for a hot coffee.

"I'm fine."

"Suit yourself," Rin says with a shrug, and bends down to retrieve the can from the machine. He cradles it in his hands for a moment, then holds it against his cheek. "It's warm," he says defensively, even though Haruka hasn't so much as twitched an eyebrow. A grin flashes across Rin's face, giving Haruka little warning before his hand darts out to try to press the can against Haruka's cheek. Haruka ducks out of the way, and Rin laughs.

"You're so stiff, Haru," he says, and he slings his arm back over Haruka's shoulders, pulls him close. The coffee can dangles near Haruka's jaw. "Crack a smile every once in a while, loosen up."

"I don't want a coffee can on my face," Haruka says. "And I already smiled today."

Rin snorts. "Wow, yeah, so impressive." He reaches his other arm around Haruka to pop the can open, has Haruka in a not-quite hug to do so. Haruka gets a whiff of coffee as the can passes beneath his nose.

"You should keep a tally," Rin says, after taking a sip and smacking his lips. "Think you could get to ten smiles within a week?"

Haruka can't think of a more pointless thing to keep a tally of. "I don't know."

Rin laughs, but it's contained, almost under his breath. He blows into the top of the can, disturbing the steam that rises. "Haru, that's pretty sad, you know? You should really do it. This is important stuff to know."

Haruka wrinkles his nose. He's feeling jostled and hunched, because Rin isn't shy about leaning his weight on him and isn't shy about waving around the hand resting against his shoulder. It's really a wonder that Rin can be so overbearing, and yet Haruka still finds himself able to bear it. Rin smells faintly of chlorine and his hair is  _this_  close to brushing against Haruka's face, but Haruka just lets him prattle on because Rin is one of the few people who have earned the right to infringe on his personal space.

Though of course Rin didn't so much earn the right as he crashed his way through every resistance Haruka had ever put up, back when they were adolescents and Rin grinned as much as he has been grinning today.

Though Haruka did miss him these past couple months, so he guesses that makes it okay, too.

With the blare of a horn and a hiss of air a train arrives, and it's Haruka's. Rin lets him go, and Haruka hands Rin the umbrella. "Because you have to get to the other side," he says, with a look toward the other platform. He stands there for a moment, dallying between just leaving and saying some form of goodbye. "Bring it back to Kaji-san soon," is what he settles on, before turning away. He gets to the doors of the train before Rin shouts out his name.

Haruka stops, looks over his shoulder.

Rin's cheeks are flushed, from the coffee or the cold or a mix of both. "Are you going tomorrow? To swim?"

"There are swimming lessons tomorrow."

Rin's eyebrows shoot up. "Aw, shit! I told Kaji-san I'd be there."

"You can go afterwards."

"Are you?"

"I'm going before."

The train's horn bellows, and Haruka steps inside. He hears Rin call after him – "Fine! Whatever! See you whenever!"

Haruka turns back, raises his voice in the moments before the doors slide closed. "Makoto will tell you when we're hanging out."

"Or you could use your own damn phone," Rin calls, but he raises the hand holding the coffee in a lazy wave, and the doors shut. Haruka can still see him through the window, sees him tip his head back to drain the last of the coffee, sees him crush the can in his hand and head toward the trash bin.

And then the train lurches, and Haruka grabs for a handhold, and he knows he'll be seeing Rin again before long.

 


	3. Distant (Winter Break - part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit late, but here you go! This chapter ended up being longer than I expected, and with a lot more scene breaks that I expected. Umm, I don't know how accurate this is, but judging by the fact that Haru and Makoto live in the hills I always picture bigger mountains rising behind them; idk it's kind of relevant. Anyway, happy New Year! Drama begins in this chapter, and please point out any mistakes I may have missed editing. The chapters just keep getting longer so editing is getting more difficult, sigh.

Rin's necklace sits at the edge of the desk. Haruka's taken it out of the drawer, because hopefully this will help him remember to return it.

 _What's America like?_  he wishes he had asked.  _What's your team like? Do you have a roommate? Do they eat mackerel over there?_ It was only once he had returned home that all the questions had come to mind, though Rin probably would have found something amusing in it if he had thought to ask them. Haruka's never been the nosy one, not out loud at least.

_Didn't know my life was so interesting to you,_ Rin would say, grinning deviously, so maybe it's better that Haruka hadn't thought to say anything.

The weather clears up, rains retreating to leave dry days in their wake. The skies stay largely gray though, snow somewhere around the corner, so indoors is where the five of them usually end up – with food, with TV, with games usually made up by Nagisa to pass the time, with loud voices and louder laughter. Sometimes Kou even joins them, if she feels up to dealing with them – and Haruka can't blame her when she doesn't, because faithfully remaining the manager of the swim team means she's almost always dealing with teenage boys.

It's easy to forget that they're all growing up and moving on with their lives when they're together like this – easy to forget that next year Nagisa and Rei and Kou will be off to university as well, easy for Haruka to forget that he's not quite sure where his own life is moving. He isn't looking forward to the end of break, but between spending time with the others, and swimming whenever he can, and giving Hiro lessons, the start of school is always a few hours closer.

They decide to go out for lunch on a Wednesday afternoon, in celebration of the last quarter's grades having come in. The restaurant is a few blocks from Iwatobi High; Kou, who's gone there a few times with some of her other friends, leads the way from the train station. Shop windows are decorated with Christmas lights; the occasional plastic snowman or Santa Claus stands along the sidewalk.

"Haru-chan, you can't get mackerel," Nagisa says, nudging Haruka in the side as they all file up the restaurant's front steps, where satin bows are tied festively along the hand railing. At Haruka's frown he adds, sounding a little like Rin, "Well, you can just eat it any old time at home. Live a little!"

They crowd around a rectangular table that is soon piled high with steaming dishes. Rin tells them about his teammates in America – the one who somehow managed to tear a slit up one leg of his suit one day, the one who had an eyebrow shaved off by his roommate as a prank, the one who wears the tiger-striped Speedo.

"And now I can't wear mine, 'cause he's a damn third-year!" he says to a chorus of laughter, smacking his hand down on the edge of the table.

Even Kou, who looks like she wants to scold her brother for his language but would have to get around Makoto to do so, can't smother her grin. Even Haruka, who has just put a dumpling into his mouth, quirks a smile around his chopsticks. None of the other diners have complained about the noise level at their table, which surprises him a little, but maybe it's the spirit of the season.

He reaches for the platter of fried squid that sits across the table to his right, in front of Rin, but knocks his elbow into his water glass. He manages to snatch it before it tips over, and for a moment thinks no one noticed amidst the commotion. But then he sees Rin smirking at him, and he frowns, which only makes Rin grin wider and raise his eyebrows as if to say  _What?_

Haruka looks pointedly at the dish, then back at Rin, who hands the plate over with a roll of his eyes.

"Ah, Haru-chan, lemme have some of that, too!" Nagisa says, very suddenly and very loudly into Haruka's ear.

Before Haruka can even put the plate down, Nagisa reaches with his chopsticks and subsequently knocks over his own water glass. It spills across the tablecloth towards Kou, who scrapes her chair back before it can reach her. Nagisa babbles an apology, tries to right his glass and manages to tip it right over again. Rei makes an indignant sound from Haruka's other side and tells everyone to start mopping up the mess, and Makoto knocks over his own glass as he grabs for his napkin.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Nagisa is still saying to Kou, and "Sorry, Haru, I'll clean it up!" Makoto is saying because his water seeps steadily in Haruka's direction, though there wasn't much in the glass.

"Rin-san, you are being utterly useless," Rei says as he dabs at the spill that's rapidly being absorbed into the tablecloth. Rin looks like he's laughing up a lung, head thrown back and arms around his stomach. He reaches blindly for his napkin, throws it in Rei's face.

"But guys, look at the bright side!" Nagisa says. "Hardly any water got into the food!"

Kou drops her forehead into her palm, and Makoto gives her an apologetic smile that she doesn't see.

Haruka can feel everyone else in the restaurant finally paying their table attention, and has the most overwhelming urge to sigh himself into oblivion, squid platter still held in his hands and all.

He doesn't think about the necklace until he gets home and sees it perched on the edge of his desk, just where he left it last.

* * *

Kou doesn't join them on Friday, the day before Christmas, when they gather at Haruka's house to play video games. It's a windy day, and in between bouts of noise from the TV, a faint whistling can be heard from outside. They've pushed the table to the back of the living room, and Haruka leans against it, watching the TV screen from over Rei's shoulder. The console is Makoto's, but the game is Nagisa's, and only two can play at a time so they take turns trying to blow each other to pixilated bits.

All of them but Rin, who sits against the wall off to the side, legs drawn up and a book propped against his knees.

"Can you believe it," he had said earlier, flopping down on the floor with a huff and then pulling a battered red paperback out of his backpack. "I have to read this entire fucking thing before class even meets for the first time."

"Well, have you started it yet?" Makoto had asked in that responsible but goading way of his, and Rin had given him a dirty look.

There is a crease of concentration between his brows and his reading glasses are perched low on his nose, like they've slipped down in the past hour and he hasn't noticed. Haruka tries to get a look at the book's title, but the bit he can see over the tops of Rin's knees is both in English and too far away for him to read.

"Nagisa-kun, wait, no!" Rei cries. He pitches himself left and right as he tries to escape Nagisa's character on the bottom half of the screen. "Pause! Time! Please give me a moment!"

"No time-outs in war, Rei-chan!"

Rei lets out a squawky shriek as his screen goes black, and Nagisa laughs triumphantly. "Haru-chan, your turn!"

"Makoto can have my turn," Haruka says, waving away the controller Rei turns around to hand him.

Nagisa nods sagely. "Forfeiting instead of facing the indignity of defeat. Wise, Haru-chan, very wise indeed. Okay Mako-chan, you're up!"

There is a small pile of presents near the entrance into the living room. Christmas has never been very high on Haruka's list of Important Things, and he always tells everyone not to get him anything, though they always manage to each find things that  _'just seemed like something you'd like, don't worry, I didn't spend a lot of money on it.'_ Nagisa's already told him what he bought:

"Mackerel jerky. Can you believe it, Haru-chan? Right at the front of the store! I swear you're behind it somehow."

Rin didn't get him anything, though, which is a relief, as it's one fewer present Haruka has to go out and buy in return. He's about to ask Rin how far he's managed to get in his book, but when he glances over he's surprised to find Rin already peering at him over the top of his reading glasses. He looks somewhat thoughtful, somewhat troubled, the same crease still between his brows. It looks like there is something on his mind that he can't quite puzzle out, and his frown marks his frustration.

For a moment he doesn't seem to realize that Haruka is looking back at him. Then he blinks and their eyes meet for real, and his gaze flickers quickly down to his book. He turns the page, for all appearances gets absorbed back into his reading. Yet Haruka can't dislodge the feeling that he had looked a little shaken, as though he had been caught doing something he had been attempting discretion at.

Rin lowers his head slightly under Haruka's scrutiny, some of his hair falling in front of his face. The motion almost seems protective, like some form of self-defense, and Haruka wonders:

_Was I not supposed to see something?_

From then on, as the days pass, he continues to notice them. Little glances, aimed his way when he's not aware and that disappear a moment too late for him to pretend he doesn't catch them. Sometimes he doesn't get a good enough look at Rin's expression, and sometimes he sees a brief flash of the same thoughtful frown, the slight furrow in Rin's brows that makes it look like he's mulling something over. There is something very guarded in those glances – every time he catches Rin's eyes he is met with something solid and unyielding just beneath the surface, shunting him away.

He wonders, and wonders, but tries not to wonder too much, because if there is something truly important going on – and if he has anything to do with it, which he very well might not, he might just be getting caught in the crossfire – he knows Rin will bring it up eventually. And as the break narrows down to its end, it doesn't look like this will happen – which means it's something Rin will work out on his own, which is fine.

He can't help one thought, though, as much as he tries to cast it off:

_Did I do something?_

* * *

It was Nagisa's idea to meet up near Haruka and Makoto's houses for a game of beach soccer, and somehow Nagisa's ideas always come to fruition. The ocean is a deep blue-grey, the sky is a bit lighter and cloudless, seems to press closer than it usually does, but the air is still and calm and this makes for a reasonable temperature. Meaning they can forego their scarves to use as goal markers, though they're still bundled up tight.

"Why did I even agree to this?" Kou wonders aloud for the third time, after she blocks the ball with a mitten-clad hand yet again and Nagisa yells for a penalty shot. Haruka's pretty sure she speaks for all of them. He doesn't even think he likes soccer that much.

"Don't worry, Gou-san," Rei says reassuringly. "If you hadn't stopped the ball there, they may have gotten around our line of defense and scored a goal. Now we have a moment to better prepare ourselves."

It's Rin and Nagisa against the rest of them – "Because you negate a person," Rin had told Kou at the start of the match, and she had promptly stomped on his toes. And, as it always goes when Rin and Haruka go head to head in anything, Haruka finds himself a lot more involved than he would otherwise care to be.

It doesn't help that Rin's decided to tail him like a dog on a leash – though he isn't sure who would be the one on the leash, actually, if he can't go anywhere without Rin on his heels. It's troublesome and tiring, not to mention frustrating when Rin manages to steal the ball from him. Soccer on the beach in the middle of winter was such a bad idea.

And it was bound to happen, as they're fighting over the ball, neither quite in possession and neither quite stealing it away, that their feet get tangled, ankle to ankle and Rin falls to the ground with a great  _whumph_  and a spray of sand.

Everybody freezes in various stages of running – knees bent, arms pumping, heads turned – to stare. Rin looks surprised for a moment, rolling onto his back and blinking up at Haruka. Then, while Kou begins to laugh unreservedly, holding her stomach and pointing, he pulls an accusing look onto his face, though it's laced with humor.

"You shithead, you did that on purpose."

Haruka wipes the back of his hand across his brow. He's miraculously managed to work up a sweat, and so has Rin – beads of perspiration are visible on his forehead as Haruka looks down at him.

"I didn't."

Rin scoffs. "I get a penalty shot," he says, making no move to get up. He's egging Haruka on in that frustrating, nonsensical way of his, and actually looks quite comfortable with sand in his hair and getting into the folds of his jacket, with his hands lying near his head, fingers curled slightly as though he might just take a nap.

"Stop being an idiot," Haruka says.

The laugh Rin lets out stutters around in his throat. It's plain as day that he's tired but just doesn't want to admit it. The others are wandering off to the sidelines, where Makoto has a pack full of food from his house. Haruka watches them go, then turns back to pin Rin with a frown. The game had been tied, and now there is no way to know who would have won.

Rin has dropped his grin. His eyes are loud, quiet, bright with something urgent yet dulled by something protective and cautious. And maybe it's because Haruka is looking down at it this time, but he thinks he sees something distinctly nervous in Rin's expression. As though as guarded as Rin wants to be, he can't be guarded enough.

Haruka feels a beat of unease, and after a too-long moment he holds out his hand. Rin grabs his wrist, and Haruka pulls him roughly up. He thinks Rin is finally going to say something, but Rin only opens his mouth for a second, hesitates, and then gives an awkward and unnecessary "Thanks."

Haruka doesn't deign him an answer, simply turns and begins to head for the others. He's getting tired of this, thought he had gotten past the point of being baffled by Rin's every little action back when they had finally convinced Rin they still wanted to be friends with him. He hates feeling so completely out of his depth all over again.

Rin catches up to him, complains about his ankle and his wrist and how Haruka had better not forget that he's a swimmer and so his body isn't something Haruka can just beat up. He's acting like everything is completely normal, and yet there is clearly something not normal happening.

The uncomfortable pit in Haruka's stomach grows tighter and heavier. He's worried, but doesn't know how to address it. Rin is supposed to be an open book; even when it isn't clear  _why_  he feels the way he does, it's always obvious what he feels. Haruka wants to ask, is on the verge of bringing it up, but Rin's behavior makes him think that he shouldn't, that he isn't supposed to.

Sometimes he catches Rin looking at him, and wishes he wasn't.

* * *

He spends New Year's Eve with Makoto and his family, as per long-standing tradition. They are his second family, and sitting around the dinner table with them, knowing this is a place he will always belong, fills him with a deep-seated happiness few things can match. Not even swimming, with its more electric, buzzing sense of joy – completely incomparable with this heavy contentment – can match it.

Ren and Ran bicker quietly at their side of the table. Mrs. Tachibana fawns over him a little more than usual, makes sure he eats his fill many times over and beams at him when he finishes up a second helping of soba. Mr. Tachibana asks him about school, asks if he's been swimming, tells him he should bring Makoto along with him to the pool sometime.

"Haru goes so early," Makoto says with a sigh. "It'd be nice to swim again, though. I've kind of gotten used to not being on a team anymore." He exchanges a wistful glance with Haruka, and Haruka makes up his mind to force him along one of these days.

They crowd into the living room after dinner to watch the New Year's music program. Ren and Ran sit on either side of Haruka on the floor, leaning against him and trying to get him to sing along with the idols on the screen. Haruka does, albeit as unenthusiastically as possible. He gets most of the words wrong, but the laughter he garners, the sensation of being surrounded by family and affection, burrows the feeling of contentment ever deeper, and for once he takes kindly to the idea of making a fool of himself.

And then Mr. Tachibana joins in from the couch, and Mrs. Tachibana lets out a quiet, exasperated "Dear…" and Makoto an embarrassed groan, and the twins collapse over Haruka in laughter.

After the fireworks are televised, Makoto and Haruka get ready to head up to the shrine, as they always do for a few minutes right after midnight. Haruka knows that Makoto will go again with his family later in the day, knows that Makoto tags along with him so he doesn't have to go alone. It's one of the many things he wants to thank Makoto for but never finds the ability to voice.

He hunches his shoulders against the cold as they step out onto the front porch. And yet it still hasn't snowed; the only thing the stairs are covered with is the glow from the lamps. Makoto's phone buzzes in his jacket pocket as they start down the steps, and once more before they reach the bottom.

"Rei says 'Happy New Year' to us both. Nagisa too." He sends Haruka a grin. "They probably texted you, too."

"Probably," Haruka agrees. He'll message them back later. He always knows that he'll first get their New Year's greetings through Makoto. And there will be a letter from his parents in his mailbox later, and he's already sent them one himself. Nothing overly sentimental on either end, just touching base and sharing well wishes, though his mother always writes at the end of her note:  _Remember to eat vegetables with all that mackerel!_

Makoto's phone buzzes a third time as they're passing the pathway to Haruka's house. He lets out a quiet sound of surprise when he reads the message, then laughs. "Rin asks if we're going to stay up for the sunrise."

Haruka glances over. Either Makoto's smile is infectious, or it's a combination of the past hours in general that has him smiling as well, despite the twist of irritation Rin's name causes. "How romantic."

Makoto sniggers, starts texting Rin back. "Want to try, though? It would be nice to see." Unlike Haruka, Makoto is very much one for holiday customs, and has probably actually stayed up to watch the New Year's sunrise before.

"Why is he asking?"

"Probably because he wants to watch it," Makoto says. He receives another message. "Ah, he wants me to tell you something."

Haruka raises his eyebrows, and Makoto hands him the phone.  _Haru says that's romantic_ , is the last thing Makoto sent, and underneath is Rin's reply:  _tell haru he's a boring asswipe who doesn't deserve to see the sunrise anyway._

He's about to hand the phone back when another message comes through:  _but i have nothing better to do so if you guys are gonna then i'll come over._

He stares at it for a moment, then gives Makoto the phone. "Tell him he can come over."

"Or you can do it yourself," Makoto says. He glances at Haruka before sending a reply, though.  _You're okay with it, right?_  is what his expression says, and Haruka prides himself in being able to read Makoto half as well as Makoto can read him.

He shrugs a shoulder. "It's fine." He can't read Makoto well enough to tell if he's just being polite, or if he can tell that Haruka's anxious about something.

He wants to see Rin one more time before school starts up, but he's tired of the loaded glances and of feeling so frustrated every time Rin is gone. Years are supposed to end peacefully, and this is the wrinkle preventing that.

The shrine is empty, lights lining the pathway leading to the main building. Even in the middle of the night, with shadows carved into corners, beneath arches, all around, the place is peaceful. Haruka lets the serenity ease into him, warding away the vague tremblings of unease.

They don't spend long, because the calm does nothing against the cold. Their breath is visible in the air as they offer a few coins, ring the bells, clap their hands together and bow their heads in a brief wish. Haruka can never think of anything really meaningful, just an indistinct jumble of feelings –  _good things for friends; time to swim; peace; quiet_ – though there is an unplanned addition this year _:_

_For things to be okay with Rin, whatever is going on._

Makoto rubs his hands together, breathes into them. "Your place?" he says.

Haruka nods. "Yeah. Let's go."

* * *

The doorbell rings at a bit past one, and the unease makes itself known again as Haruka heads for the door. Rin is hopping from foot to foot on the doorstep, hands in the pockets of his jacket and arms tucked close to his sides, backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Fucking cold," he says, and immediately elbows his way inside. He's already kicked off his shoes and dropped his backpack to the floor by the time Haruka shuts the door. "Haru, you got food?" he asks, not bothering to look back as he heads down the hall.

Haruka takes off after him, socks muffling his footfalls, nerves fluttering uncomfortably in his chest. "I haven't cooked for you, if that's what you mean."

Rin waves his hand dismissively. "Didn't say I wanted mackerel. Hey Makoto, there was a good horror movie marathon on when I left home."

Haruka catches up just in time to see Makoto – sitting on the floor watching some sitcom on the TV – crane his head around to call as Rin disappears into the kitchen: "I think I'll have to pass on that one."

Haruka stands at the edge of the living room for a moment, then lets out a sigh and enters.

"Horror movies are good for keeping you awake," he says, sitting down next to Makoto and ignoring the look of dread he gets in response. He can hear Rin rustling around in the pantry, the sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing.

"Haru, what is all this stuff?" Rin calls.

Haruka turns to look over his shoulder, but Rin doesn't appear in the doorway to show him anything.

"I don't know. It's not mine." Most if not all of the snacks in his cabinets are things Nagisa had brought over on some occasion or another but had never gotten around to opening. He keeps the jerky in his room, though.

Rin returns with his arms full of crinkly, brightly-colored junk food bags. He manages to sit down next to Haruka without spilling any, and then lets them fall all over his lap and the floor.

"This looks boring. We gonna watch scary movies or not? I'm gonna finish my reading otherwise." He tears open a bag of chips, stuffs a handful into his mouth.

Haruka shrugs, reaches for the remote at Makoto's feet and sets it in front of Rin. "I don't care either way."

Makoto makes a distressed sound.

"Relax," Rin says, leaning forward to grin at him. "We'll leave the lights on for you."

Makoto leaves the room in a rush to get a pillow, and only then does Rin look at Haruka, mouth wide with amusement and peppered with crumbs. "He's pretty excited."

Haruka gives a soft snort. "He is." He doesn't think he'll even understand it.  _I_ _don't know why I can't stop watching them!_  Makoto had told him in anguish one night, after they had watched some movie Haruka's already forgotten and Makoto had demanded that they sleep with a light on.

The chip bag is thrust in front of his face, and he jerks his head back.

"Try one," Rin tells him. Haruka frowns at him, then peers warily into the bag.

"Why?"

"Why not? I'm offering."

At least Rin being this pushy is normal, Haruka thinks. Rin's knee pushes against his own, Rin shakes the bag beneath his chin.

"What flavor is it?"

"I dunno. It says lime and shrimp, but they're orange and taste like..." He shrugs.

With a resigned sigh, Haruka fishes out a long, skinny chip. He takes a bite, and Rin's gaze flickers down to his mouth. Before he can come up with a verdict, a pillow flies out of nowhere and hits Rin in the back of the head.

"Sorry," Makoto says, coming back into the room with two more pillows. "I got one for each of us."

"What if I spilled my chips on the floor?" Rin grumbles. 

"It wouldn't matter," Haruka says. "They don't taste good." He takes the pillow Makoto hands him, holds the remote out to Rin. "Find the channel with the movie."

It doesn't take long for Makoto to end up huddled behind him, pillow all but forgotten on the floor. His fingers grip Haruka's shirt, and he rams his forehead into Haruka's shoulder every time something frightening happens onscreen. Even Rin, for all his bravado, ends up clearing his lap of everything but his pillow, which he flings in front of his face every time he  _anticipates_ something frightening happening onscreen.

Haruka doesn't know which is more exasperating: Makoto's masochistic peeking and consequent head butting, or the pillow he gets to the side of the head every time Rin loses his nerve. They've both taken to leaning against him – Makoto forcing him to hunch forward and Rin forcing him to tip to the side. He eventually tugs the pillow out of Rin's grasp and pushes it into Makoto's arms, which puts an end to the head butting and the facefulls of pillow, but when Rin begins using an open chip bag for a shield he knows he's fighting a losing battle.

By the time the movie credits roll, though, Makoto's weight has been pressed to his back for so long without shifting that Haruka thinks he may have fallen asleep. Rin makes a tired sound, straightens up and reaches for the remote. The movement upsets Haruka's balance, and he has to prop a hand against the floor to keep from toppling over. He hadn't even realized he had started leaning against Rin, can hardly even remember the past half hour of the film.

Makoto grunts, lifts his head. "Is it over?"

"S'over. The end sucked," Rin says. He mutes the TV, lets out a long yawn, then surprises Haruka by leaning back into him. "What time's sunrise? 'M so tired."

Makoto shuffles around them on his knees, flops down onto his stomach. Haruka half expects Rin to back off at any moment, and is infinitely relieved when he doesn't. Shoulder to shoulder and arm to arm, this is the kind of presence he is used to. No inexplicable distance, just Rin completely taking over his personal space and giving no say in the matter otherwise.

Makoto is doing something on his phone. Haruka stares at the screen through unfocused eyes, lets himself be jostled when Rin shifts again, this time so he can lean his back completely against Haruka's side. It isn't comfortable, but Haruka is too tired to put up any resistance.

"A little after seven," Makoto finally mumbles, pulling Haruka from his daze. "That's when sunrise is."

"Don't think I'm gonna make it," Rin says. "Let's just turn off the lights and sleep."

Thinking this is a brilliant idea, Haruka stands up to do just that, and Rin topples over with a graceless noise of surprise. The glows from Makoto's phone and the TV screen are just enough to see by once Haruka flicks off the light. Rin has rolled over so he's face down in his pillow, and he doesn't look like he's going to be moving anytime soon.

"Should I set an alarm?" Makoto asks.

"Unless you think you can wake up in time," Rin says, words muffled.

"You should set it," Haruka says, crossing back over to them. He sits down, leans towards Makoto to check the time.

"Hey," Rin says suddenly, lifting his head just enough to peer at them both. "Are we even on the right side of the mountains to see the sun come up?"

Makoto's phone goes dark, leaving just the TV as lighting. Shadows cut deep across their faces. Rin's forehead is scrunched in thought.

"'Cause if the sun rises in the east and sets in the west…"

Haruka tries to picture where they are and where the mountains are and where east is, and doesn't get very far.

"Maybe we're not," Makoto says.

Rin drops his face back into the pillow. "So then what?"

"Well, you can still look at the colors in the sky even if you can't see the sun," Makoto says.

"We can climb to the top of the mountain," Haruka says, not meaning a word of it. He takes his pillow and lies down, stares at the ceiling.

"Then we'd have to get up earlier," Rin says.

Makoto yawns. "We don't have to climb a mountain." His yawn is contagious – Haruka catches it first, then hears Rin catch it from him. Then the room goes silent, the flickering of the TV screen lulling Haruka's eyes shut. He's almost asleep when Makoto speaks up, a tentative question in the near-dark.

"Rin?"

A pause. "What?"

"You like America, don't you?"

"Yeah, it's cool," Rin says, voice sleep-heavy. "Nice food. Nice weather. Nice pool."

Makoto chuckles, and that is that.

* * *

It's much too early when the alarm goes off. Haruka has to wrench himself from sleep, has no energy left to lift his cheek from the pillow. Somewhere nearby he hears Rin grumble, "I don't like this idea anymore," and from his other side he hears Makoto let out a tired sound and fumble with his phone.

The alarm cuts off; Haruka forces his eyes open. He turned onto his side sometime in the past few hours, can see the TV flickering against the wall. He tips his head up a bit and sees Rin on his back, an arm flung over his face.

"I gave us ten minutes, so we should get moving," Makoto says. He doesn't sound very enthusiastic, but he gets up and so Haruka makes himself follow suit.

"Rin." Rin gives no response when Haruka's foot nudges his shoulder, though his frown grows a bit more pronounced. The lights flicker on. Haruka winces, and squints, and nudges Rin again.

Rin sits up with a massive groan. He is unresponsive for another long moment, head bowed and hair a tousled mess. Then lets out a loud sniff. "This is the worst idea ever."

"You were the one who suggested it," Haruka says.

Rin squints up at him. "Why don't you guys ever tell me when my ideas are this stupid?"

"I think if we did," Makoto says, coming over and giving Rin a hand up, "you'd just pretend that we didn't."

"And we usually do," Haruka adds. Rin sends him a very unthreatening glare.

They're out the door in a couple of minutes, scarved and gloved, Rin with his hood pulled up. They start to trek up to a pathway a bit past the shrine that looks out over the ocean, where they'll have a clear view of the sky. The temperature has plunged overnight, and halfway to their destination Makoto decides to head back for blankets – "In case we want to watch for a while. You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up in a second."

"Aye aye, Captain," Rin says, bringing a hand to his forehead in a groggy salute.

He and Haruka continue on, fatigue making the silence much more agreeable than conversation would be. Their feet scuffle softly against the steps – the only real sound at this hour, because not even the birds have risen. Windows are dark, houses silent, the ocean breathes softly behind them. The air smells like ice as it brushes Haruka's cheeks.

They reach the pathway, walk about halfway down it and then lean back against the safety railing. The town descends at their backs. Ahead and above are more mountains, more trees. The sky is a pale bluish gray; Makoto is cutting it close.

"The snow's late this year," Rin comments, never one to go long without talking no matter how tired he is. "But it's still colder than at school."

Haruka hums an agreement. "You're going to miss the worst of it, though."

"Yeah. It doesn't even snow over there."

Haruka looks over at him.

"Seriously," Rin says. He turns around, props his elbows against railing. "I was kinda hoping I'd see some here. It's gonna be a weird winter without it. Then again, it never snowed in Australia, either."

Haruka stares up at the sky, wonders when the wispy clouds will be replaced with thicker ones. He can't quite imagine a winter without snow.

"Haru, we should race in the ocean sometime."

Haruka frowns, glances back over. Rin isn't looking at him, but he does look serious.

"When it's warmer."

"No shit, I'm not an idiot," Rin says, rolling his eyes. He bends lower over the railing, rests his chin atop his hands.

Haruka turns around as well, looks out over the ocean. It's the color of steel, lacks any warmth, reminds him that now that they're standing still he can feel the cold seeping more persistently through his clothing.

"Wow," Rin says, voice almost a sigh. Or maybe something of a gasp, like he's trying to contain a shiver. His nose is as red as his hair. "Can't believe I'm actually gonna be watching the New Year's sunrise. Romantic, huh?" he teases, grinning out into the air before them.

Haruka presses his lips together against a smile. It really is as though the past couple of weeks had never happened, as though they had jumped from the restaurant to this day with nothing in between. He almost wants to ask –  _What was wrong?_  – but knows it isn't his place to pry. He'd rather be glad in his quiet way that Rin has sorted out whatever needed to be sorted out.

"Rin." He feels Rin look at him, and he keeps his gaze fixed determinedly over the rooftops. "Keep practicing your free."

He hears Rin chuckle. "You wanna lose that bad?"

"I think…" Haruka lets out a breath. "I think I'm gonna have more time to practice soon."

He can feel Rin's attention on him intensify like there is an actual current in the air.

"What do you mean, you're gonna have more time?"

Haruka shrugs. He hadn't been banking on questions, but he probably should have. "I'm not sure yet. I've been thinking about something a bit, that's all." He hears footsteps on the pathway, looks over to see Makoto arriving with the blankets.

"What do you mean?" Rin presses, grabbing his elbow.

Haruka pins him with a warning glare. "It's not a big deal," he says, pulling his arm from Rin's grip. He shakes his head at the questioning look Makoto gives them.

Makoto hands them each a blanket, and is painfully transparent when he squeezes in between them at the railing.

"Jeez, Makoto," Rin grumbles. "We weren't gonna throw punches or anything."

"Just making sure," Makoto says pleasantly enough. "And I'm pretty sure there's only one of you I'd have to worry about throwing punches."

Haruka can imagine the frown, the sudden bristling, but instead all he hears from Rin after a long second is a loud, deflating sigh and a sarcastic, "Yeah, yeah. Real funny." The tension dissipates like their breath in the air.

Haruka drapes the blanket over his shoulders, hugs it closed. The sky lightens, and lightens, seems to turn almost yellow, almost white. And then there is pink, catching his eye on the horizon above the crescent of mountains at his right, and a bit later orange, deep and glowing. He doesn't know how long he stands staring, only gets a sense of time passed when he starts to feel the crick in his neck. He looks overhead, to the clouds turning a burnt brick color as they are backlit by the sunrise.

_Beautiful!_  Rei would proclaim, mouth wide with delight, if he were here with them. And Haruka would have to agree with him.

"Wow," Makoto breathes in awe. "This is really something, isn't it?"

"It's nicer here," Rin says, sounding subdued. "The sunrise. The colors just look nicer. I'm not saying I go watching the sunrise all the time," he adds defensively. "We just have morning practice sometimes, so I'm just comparing what I've seen."

Haruka can't see him past Makoto, but he does see Makoto grinning as though trying to hold back a laugh. He feels a sudden swell of appreciation, a rush of giddiness.

"Happy New Year, Makoto, Rin."

Rin leans back to look at him. "You're kinda a lot of hours late, Haru," he says, but Makoto gasps, blanket slipping off as he grabs Haruka's shoulder to turn him around. "Look, we can actually see it!"

And so they can. The sun is a rich gold as it peeks over a mountain crag.

Rin starts laughing. "What the hell were we even talking about – 'if the sun rises in the east and sets in the west'?"

Makoto laughs too. "I think we were just tired. Or bad at geography."

"This feels like the ending to some cheesy ass movie," Rin says. It kind of does, Haruka thinks. After this will be goodbyes, and now that they've actually seen the sun there isn't reason to stick around much longer.

Makoto parts with them at the picket fence in front of Haruka's house, because his family is planning to head back to the shrine sometime after breakfast and he'd like to get some sleep first. "Make sure you finish your reading," he tells Rin, as he's folding up his blanket to hand to Haruka.

Rin snorts, crosses his arms. "See you  _later_ , Makoto."

Haruka is ready to head inside, put the blankets in his arms back into the closet, crawl into bed if he can. "Are you staying or leaving?" he asks Rin, once Makoto is gone.

Rin turns to him, stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Well, I kinda need to go home and pack. And read. But, um –"

"Wait," Haruka says suddenly, stopping Rin short. A smile of relief breaks across his face. "I remembered. I have something to give you."

"Huh?"

"You left something here," Haruka says. He heads toward the door.

"What? When?" Rin says, scrambling after him.

Haruka drops the blankets in the entranceway, nudges off his shoes. "When you stayed over last time, before you left for school." He rushes to the stairs. "I can't believe I remembered," he says, feet heavy on the steps, Rin's joining in a moment later. "I've been forgetting this whole time."

"Haru, what the hell are you even talking about?"

"This," Haruka says, when he turns into his room. He snatches up the necklace from the edge of his desk and turns around just as Rin bursts in, looking utterly confused. "It fell off. I found it on my bed," Haruka says, crossing over to him.

Rin holds out a hand. Haruka places the necklace in his palm.

Recognition flickers across Rin's face, followed by a hint of embarrassment. "Oh, yeah," he says. He gives a quiet laugh. "I forgot." He stares down at the necklace for a long moment, closes his fingers around it. "Haru."

Haruka waits, but Rin doesn't say anything else, doesn't look at him. "What?"

"There's…I have to tell you something."

"Okay." It isn't like Rin to announce when he's going to say something, but who knows what goes on in his head.

Rin sticks the necklace into the pocket of his jacket, and doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands afterwards. He crosses his arms, then changes his mind and puts his hands in his pockets as well. He meets Haruka's eyes, and Haruka sees something all too familiar – something cautious and closed – and has the urge to throw up his arms and say,  _Not now, I thought this was done!_

But Rin looks calm, also. Determined – like he's made up his mind about something, and Haruka realizes he's going to find out what had been bothering him so much. The beat of panic is something he doesn't understand; he doesn't know why he is filled with dread, only that he suddenly wants to tell Rin that he doesn't have to say anything, that it's not a good time, that –

"Haru, I like you."

For a moment it's as though nothing actually happened, nothing was said. Haruka stands still, the dread still a dull twist in his chest. He hears the words but not the meanings inside of them. And then his mind supplies them again, and a third time, and a fourth.

Rin's voice, and those heavy, heavy words.

Oh. Oh no.

_What?_  he wants to say – and he does say it in his head, like some slow echo, his words mixing with Rin's words and leaving him feeling more and more blank.  _Say that again. What do you mean?_

Except it's pretty clear what Rin means. He isn't shuttering himself anymore, isn't calm anymore, is looking at Haruka with an expression that is wide open and vulnerable. And scared.

And Haruka feels another type of panic hit him. He doesn't like that look on Rin's face, not at all, and is afraid that anything he does will make it worse. How long has he been standing mute already? This isn't something he can stay silent for. He needs to give some response, anything.

_Don't cry_ , he wants to say. He thinks it desperately, pleadingly.  _Please, don't cry._ "Rin," he manages to say, voice jagged and weak, but his mind has nothing to supply beyond that.

"You don't have to say anything," Rin says, with a smile that looks painful to wear. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out a noisy breath. "Shit, I probably shouldn't have said anything, huh? But I just –" He gnaws on his lip, looks away. Swallows. "Just wanted to say it." Then, so quiet it's almost a breath: "Shit."

He shouldn't have. He  _shouldn't_  have. It's all Haruka can think – that Rin shouldn't have said anything. How was he supposed to be ready for this? What is he supposed to do? What is he supposed to think? What did Rin  _expect?_

He feels fenced in. Rin is nearer the door, and Haruka can't do this now, can't think when Rin is right there and looking like he's about to break into little pieces. He's hurting Rin –  _he's hurting Rin_. The panic spreads thick and slow through him, sinks deep like a poison that has rendered him immobile.

But Rin doesn't cry, doesn't even get watery-eyed. He just smiles that horrible smile and looks very, very sad. "Just don't worry about it, okay?" he says, and Haruka wants to yell,  _How am I supposed to not worry? I don't know what to do! Was I supposed to see this coming?_

Because he didn't. He didn't see it at all. Rin has always been loud, and pushy, and obnoxious, and demanding, and physical, and crass – and none of that ever changed!  _Nothing_  changed, so how? – when?

"I'll just – I'll go," Rin says, backing toward the door. "It's okay – it's – just forget about it if you want. It'd probably be better."

He stops for a moment in the doorway. Struggles over something to say, and settles on a quiet, "See you in the spring."

Haruka is too slow to respond, mind still spinning uselessly as Rin's footsteps head down the stairs. He hears the front door open and shut, and all he can do is bring a hand to his face and stare through his fingers in shock and sick, crushing guilt.

 


	4. Empty (Spring Break - part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly but surely come the updates... Most of the end of the spring break section is written so it shouldn't take two months for the next update /shifty eyes/

The only thing that Haruka is mad about is that Rin is gone now, which means he has to sit tight for two-some months harboring the knowledge of what Rin feels for him, without actually being able to talk to Rin about it.

There is so much he needs to know, needs to ask. Needs to say, especially.  _You're my friend no matter what; I'm sorry I couldn't say anything; I was too surprised; I never expected it._

He's never had to deal with an actual confession before. Chocolates on Valentine's Day, sure, but no one's ever told him they had feelings for him. People just seem to know that a confession is not something he'll have a response for, that 'Haruka' and 'romance' don't exist on the same plane.

Of course it has to be Rin who tries to defy that rule.

And he has to admit to himself that there are ways to get in contact with Rin. There's that app on his phone, the one Makoto downloaded for him that he's never used, but that he knows he could message Rin with. But that seems too impersonal, and maybe he's a little bit terrified – because if he can't see Rin's face then he'd have even less of an idea of how Rin was reacting, and he's already blundered up enough.

He needs to see Rin, needs to actually have him there with him. And he needs time, because the conversation they need to have is not something that will be quick, but more so than that, he needs to actually figure out what he wants to say. How he feels. What he thinks.

This is something that can only be done in person. They both owe each other that much.

But as unprepared as he feels to face Rin now, he feels even less prepared to wait. Frustration turns to anger turns back to frustration.

You can't drop something like this on someone and then just leave.

* * *

He almost brings it up to Makoto more than once, feeling mortified at the very thought of baring something so intimate, but at the same time feeling so desperate for any kind of advice.  _Rin likes me. What do I do? Help._

But he always stops himself, split seconds before the words slip out. He can't say anything, not if Rin hasn't told anyone else, and though he doesn't know, he guesses that Rin hasn't. As overwhelmed as he feels, he's going to respect the courage it took for Rin to tell him at all, and the fact that Rin actually cares for him so much, for reasons he can't fathom.

And that brings up a whole new question he needs to ask Rin:  _Why?_

Why does Rin like  _him_?

Wondering this makes it feel so much more concrete – Rin  _likes_  him, it has to be a fact or there would be no question of why – and yet the acceptance keeps slipping away. Comprehension that seems to dawn and dawn but never actually settle, guilt and dread bubbling up, making his skin feel prickly and not his own.

He feels flattered, maybe. But nervous, unsure.

He feels discomfort, most of all. It's a sensation that stings, or burns, or itches – he can't tell, only that he wants to be able to carve it out with his fingers and throw it far, far away.

He wonders if this is how most people react to confessions. Probably not. He tries to figure out which part bothers him so much, and the best he can come up with is that he's scared of things changing drastically with Rin again.

"Haru?"

He jerks his head up, realizes he's been staring at the carpet between his feet. Makoto comes back into the room, sits beside him on the bed, places a plate of fruit slices between them. "Mom says there's more if we finish," he says, but he isn't smiling. He doesn't say anything else, either, but he looks at Haruka with poorly-disguised concern.

It's only been a week, and he knows Makoto knows something is wrong.

"Thanks," Haruka says. He crunches into an apple wedge, avoids Makoto's eyes.

"Did you figure out the question you were having problems with?"

Haruka makes a noncommittal sound. His textbook lies open beside his hip, and he hasn't looked at it since Makoto left to get them a snack.

"Should we take a break, then?"

Haruka makes another indistinct sound. He hears Makoto suck in a breath and hold it as though he's on the verge of saying something, but then two heads poke around the doorway, stealing Haruka's attention and forcing Makoto to turn to see what he's looking at.

"Mom and Dad took over the TV downstairs," Ran says with a pout. She and her brother troop into the room.

"They're watching something boring," Ren whines, "but  _we_  were gonna watch the Pokémon movie."

"Haven't you two already seen that?" Makoto asks, as the twins converge on the snack plate.

"Only once," Ran says, taking an apple slice. "Can we watch it in here? Please?"

Makoto looks at Haruka, who shrugs.

"Well, we were just about to take a break," Makoto says, and the twins cheer. Makoto smiles wearily and hands the remote to his sister.

"Hey, Haru-chan," Ran says a few minutes later, when they're waiting through the last of the commercials. "Do you have a favorite Pokémon?"

Haruka, who is sitting on the floor beside Makoto so the twins can be in front of the TV on the bed, thinks back to the old game his grandmother bought him before she passed away.

"The blue alligator."

"Eh? What's that one?" Ran mutters to her brother.

"That's a really old one," Ren says, sounding awed.

"The water liked him," Haruka says.

"You're so weird, Haru-chan," Ran says, and Haruka hears her flop down before her chin comes to a rest on his shoulder. "Can I play with your hair?" She doesn't wait for an answer, simply starts tugging and twisting, only somewhat gentle.

Once the movie is over and the twins have left for bed, Makoto tips his head back and closes his eyes. "Man, I'm so beat."

"Maybe you should drop a class," Haruka suggests. He starts removing the hair ties, wincing when bare pieces of elastic snag and pull.

Makoto shakes his head. "I can handle it."

Haruka continues his work quietly, and sets the ties on Makoto's desk when he's done. "Do you want to sleep?"

Makoto nods, eyes still closed. He half-climbs half-drags himself onto his bed, collapses face down.

It's only ten, so it feels a little strange for Haruka to turn off the light, almost like he's a parent taking care of a sick child. But with all that's been on his mind, he realizes that he feels pretty worn out as well, and when he crosses to the bed Makoto rolls aside to leave him room.

The house goes quiet save for the occasional creaks and cracks, the walls coming to life and stretching their stiff joints. He and Makoto lie back to back, and though Haruka wants to close his eyes, his mind is kept awake by the incessant feeling that he's somehowbetraying Makoto by keeping quiet about Rin. There is no way that Rin liking him won't affect the three of them.

It's no surprise that Makoto can tell he's still awake, even less of a surprise that Makoto addresses the very thought plaguing him.

"Haru?"

Haruka prompts him to continue with a soft hum.

"You know, right, that if you need anything, I'll be there. To help, or listen, or whatever's best. You don't have to feel like you have to keep everything to yourself if something's bothering you. Okay?"

"I know," Haruka says. He wishes he could say something better. "Thank you."

"Mm-hm. 'Night, Haru."

"Good night."

He feels Makoto shift, feels Makoto's back warm against his, and thinks of Rin. Thinks of the look on Rin's face, and feels something within him collapse for the millionth time.

He had looked so  _devastated_. Haruka had done that to him.

He feels a tightening in his chest. Is it his lungs? His heart? Is it in his stomach, even? All of him feels so mixed up, a horrible burning heat, like fire ants beneath his skin.

He can't keep doing this. He needs to stop, even if it's just for his own sake. He won't think of Rin any more than he has to, and he'll do everything to stop thinking of him when he starts to. It hurts too much, he feels too horrible. It won't do to let the guilt eat away at him. And it won't do to make Makoto so worried, because then he'd have two people to feel guilty over and he doesn't think he'd be able to shoulder that.

He won't think of Rin, and then when Rin is back, he will. They'll talk, and no matter the outcome, things will be okay.

Until then, he'll turn his thoughts elsewhere. Rin will be fine. Rin is strong, stronger than anyone he knows.

* * *

It's completely ironic when Hiro asks him, very innocently on Monday morning, "Haru-chan, is your friend gonna come back to swim?"

Haruka falters, muscles going tense before he catches himself and exhales. Hiro continues to blink up at him, hand in his and expression childishly curious.

"He's at school now, far away," Haruka says.

"But is he gonna come back?"

"I don't know. He might," Haruka says, trying to sound impartial. "Do you want to keep working on backstroke today?"

"Yeah! I'll race you!"

Haruka allows a small smile, and allows himself to be tugged over to the pool steps. These days he teaches Hiro for about half an hour, until Hiro has to leave for school and Ishikawa-san for work, and then he swims for about an hour more. His classes aren't until the afternoon, so he doesn't catch the train with Makoto in the mornings anymore, though they do take it home together at the end of this day.

This morning, when Haruka exits the locker room, Kaji-san is absorbed in something on his computer screen, fingers typing away and eyes occasionally flickering down to the paperwork in front of him. On a stand propped atop the desk is an advertisement for summer swim lessons.  _I don't have this thing up by New Years, parents start askin' if summer classes're canceled,_ Kaji-san had said when Haruka first noticed the sign a few weeks ago.

"Has anyone signed up yet?"

Kaji-san looks up from his computer. "You kiddin'? Two so far this week. Makin' five in total. In January! We all know who we gotta thank for that."

Kaji-san likes to claim that more kids have been signing up for swim lessons ever since Haruka's high school team starting winning competitions. Haruka thinks he's probably stretching the truth.

Kaji-san looks at him with a keen eye. "But what's got'cha so interested?"

"I'm not interested," Haruka says quickly.

Kaji-san lets out a loud laugh. "All right, Nanase. All right. I won't ask. But here." He wheels his chair backwards to the filing cabinets, picks up some papers on top and wheels back, holding them out for Haruka.

Haruka takes them, reads a few lines, and feels his eyes go wide. He looks at Kaji-san, speechless.

Kaji-san waves him away, but not without a last word. "You'd better start fillin' that out. Instructors gotta train early, ya know. If they even get accepted."

"Thank you," Haruka says, tongue feeling too clumsy for even the two words. Kaji-san gives another dismissive wave of his hand, but it's accompanied by a smile.

Later, as the train lurches gently along the tracks, Haruka holds the forms in his lap and can't help giving a smile of his own.

That was easier than he thought it would be.

* * *

And so most of the term passes routinely enough. He gives Hiro lessons in the mornings, catches up with Makoto at school around lunch time, and they head home together. Nagisa and Rei and Kou parade through his days here and there, but they are all busy keeping their marks up during the final stretch. Even Nagisa buckles down and gets to work with a seriousness that is a little surreal –  _Studying first, then fun, Haru-chan,_  is not something Haruka ever thought he'd hear.

He doesn't think about Rin much, and every time he starts to, he forces his mind elsewhere. It gets a little bit easier, a little more routine.

On the train home a week before exams, he shows Makoto the forms and tells him he doesn't think he's going to be returning to school in the spring.

"I can't say I'm all that surprised," Makoto finally says, and Haruka isn't all that surprised by his reaction, though it doesn't quite reassure him.

"Do you think it's a bad idea?"

"No. I think it suits you," Makoto says, whatever that's supposed to mean. "I mean that you always kind of do things your own way."

The train stops, the doors open, they pull their feet back as students crowd off.

"When did you get this?" Makoto asks, handing the form back.

"A while ago," Haruka says, feeling sheepish even though he knows it doesn't show. It doesn't need to, because Makoto can sense it anyway.

"A while? Why haven't you filled it out yet?"

Haruka shrugs. He'd look out the window if he could, but it's behind him and there are people sitting across the way, so he settles for pretending he's very interested in some unspecific section of the flooring. "Haven't decided if it's a bad idea."

"Haru! It's a really good idea!"

Haruka gives him a bemused look.

"For you," Makoto clarifies. "For you, it's a really good idea. Really. If your lessons with Hiro are any indication, this is something you're suited for."

"He's one kid."

"You're fine with kids. You're fine with Ren and Ran."

Haruka has to admit this is true. But they're older than Hiro, and he's known them for what feels like forever.

"And Kaji-san will definitely recommend you.  _And_ ," Makoto carries on, fired up with enthusiasm now, "this is something that could turn into a long-term thing. And it's swimming! Haru, it's perfect!"

"Okay," Haruka says, mostly so Makoto will calm down. He's starting to draw attention.

"Well, you should probably think about filling it out, at any rate," Makoto says, goading but not forceful.

"Okay," Haruka says again, and Makoto sighs, but he's almost smiling.

"You said you weren't surprised," Haruka remembers suddenly, as they're walking up the steps toward his house. He frowns at Makoto, who looks up from his phone, thumbs stilling in the midst of what is probably another text message. He's been texting someone nonstop since their conversation on the train ended. Haruka thinks it's remarkable he's managed not to trip up the stairs. "Were you expecting me to drop out?"

Makoto laughs. "No, not drop out. But…let's just say it was obvious you didn't have your heart in it."

Haruka gets out his keys, saying nothing.

Later still, when he's helping Haruka cook dinner in return for being able to stay to eat it, Makoto asks, "So when you're not teaching swim lessons, what are you gonna do?"

The egg and vegetables are frying in the pan with the chicken –  _A miracle,_  Makoto had said, when Haruka had opened a fridge void of fish. Haruka had found it a shame, an even bigger shame that he had completely forgotten to stop by the store on the way home.

Now he's chopping the green onions, because he still doesn't trust Makoto around the cutting board. " _If_  I teach swim lessons," he corrects.

Makoto  _tsk_ -s. "Is that 'if' if you're going to fill out the application, or if you'll get hired once you fill it out?"

"If I get hired."

"Come on, Haru. If you apply, you'll be hired."

"You don't know that." The edge hasn't crept into Haruka's voice yet, but Makoto's enthusiasm is beginning to feel pushy.

"I'm pretty sure I know that."

"Watch out," Haruka says, coming over with the onions. Makoto steps aside so he can dump them in, and then gets back to stirring.

"Nagisa's told you about his party, right?"

"Yeah," Haruka says, turning on the sink so he can wash the cutting board. The party is for the swim team, celebrating a good season as well as celebrating those graduating. He and Makoto are invited by default.

"Did he tell you he named it? The 'We Survived' party." Makoto chuckles. "I guess we all survived something this year, didn't we? Competitions, high school, and we made it through our first year of college. Kinda makes me feel old, when I think about it."

"Hm."

"He's waiting to find out when Rin comes back before he sets a date."

The punch-to-the-gut feeling is manageable, but still leaves an unpleasant feeling in its wake. A little bit sore, a little bit jittery. Haruka tries to ignore it. "Hm."

"Have you heard from him recently?"

He takes in a breath, lets it out, inaudible over the sounds of the food frying and the sink running. He shuts off the water, sets the cutting board on the rack. "No."

"Me neither. He's probably been busy surviving, also."

"Yeah."

"Hey Haru?"

Haruka lets out another breath. "What?"

"Am I burning the vegetables?"

* * *

The night before Nagisa's party, he sits on the edge of his bed in the dark, with a plan in his head that feels like it's falling to pieces. He knows Rin is back in Japan. Has probably been back for almost a week, probably since around the time he and Makoto buckled down and started studying for exams.

He wonders if he should text him, just to say something. Anything. His phone is already in his hands, but it just sits there as his brain comes up with feeble suggestions.

_Hi._

_How are you?_

_See you tomorrow._

Tomorrow. It's too near and hardly near enough. Two months is a long time. Long enough to dull the shock Rin's confession had first brought on, so that it's no longer the mind-spinning thing that left him unable to function in his bedroom on New Year's morning.

Two months has been long enough for him to decide that Rin liking him doesn't change who Rin is, and doesn't have to change who Rin is to him. And with that decision made, he had started to believe that when he and Rin would talk, it would be easy.

Of course, he'd never thought about how he'd get Rin alone. Or where. Definitely not at a party. How is he supposed to talk to Rin tomorrow, surrounded by rowdy swim team members and whatever Nagisa has in store for them?

He feels the sudden surety that things won't go right if he waits until tomorrow. He needs to establish contact sooner, needs to somehow reassure himself that Rin is still there and can be contacted at all.

But he also feels like it's too late, because he's had so much time, and he's waited so long.

He pulls up Rin's name, their most recent text conversation dated late last year. His thumbs hover over the keyboard until the screen goes dark.

He tries to sleep, but it's made difficult by a perpetual twist in his gut, shame and disappointment and Rin's devastated expression crowding in from all angles.

Tomorrow will either be the start of things getting better or things getting so much worse.

* * *

Everyone else is in high spirits, and Haruka has finally extricated himself from a group of his old swim teammates and retreated to the kitchen where it's quietest. There, he dwells on the fact that he's probably the only person who hasn't survived anything at this 'We Survived' party; if anything, the thing he's going to have to survive will be happening very soon.

Because Rin  _likes_  him.

It's not a dull thing anymore. It is immediate and pressing, eliminating the last bits of his surety and leaving his mouth dry, but his stomach has tied itself into such a tight knot that he hasn't even managed a sip of the water he's poured himself.

Nagisa bounces into the room, spots him in the corner, and bounds over. "Haru-chan, there you are! We're gonna start a game of cards in the living room, you wanna –" He stops, gives Haruka a concerned look. "Haru-chan? You're, um…spilling the water a little bit. On the floor."

Haruka snaps his wrist straight, looks at the small puddle on the tiles and regrets filling his cup to the brim.

"You okay, Haru-chan?"

Haruka sets the cup on the counter. "I'm fine. I'll clean it up."

But Nagisa catches his wrist, starts to drag him toward the living room. "Don't worry about it; it'll dry. We've gotta get you out of the kitchen! This is no time to be antisocial, Haru-chan. What were you even doing in there?"

"Getting some water."

He doesn't think Nagisa hears him. It doesn't matter, because the doorbell rings as soon as they're out of the kitchen, and somehow he knows it's Rin this time. Nagisa lets him go, rockets over to the front door, and Haruka gravitates to the edge of the room, behind a couch and behind all the other people who have paid the doorbell no notice.

It's been two months, two and a half, of no speaking, no nothing, and now Rin's going to parade through the front door and what is Haruka supposed to do? What will Rin expect him to do? What does Rin expect ever?

Kou comes in first, hangs her scarf and coat on the stand by the door and hurries farther into the warmth. But Haruka is staring past her, and when Rin walks through the doorway – frowning, shoulders slightly hunched, hands in his pockets, same as always – he feels for a second like he's been jolted and his ribs have had to absorb the shock. He can't even tell what he feels anymore – fear, or anxiety, or shame – and he almost misses Nagisa's cry of joy when Nitori appears.

Rin scans the room, gaze snagging for a moment on Haruka, but not on his eyes, somewhere above them, and then he elbows Nitori in the side to get him moving inside as the other guests converge on them.

Kou extricates herself from the throng, shaking her head in exasperation, and heads Haruka's way. "No hellos for me, I guess. Their own manager, overshadowed by her brother, their old rival." She has a smile for Haruka, though. "Hi, Haruka-senpai. How's the party?"

Haruka greets her, says something about it being loud, and in the background Rin and Nitori and their paparazzi in tow manage to make it into the kitchen without Rin sparing so much as a glance his way.

Maybe he lost his chance to speak to Rin a long time ago.

As the night wears on, Haruka lets himself be corralled around by whoever corrals him around, usually Nagisa because Rei and Makoto quickly give up. He doesn't try to approach Rin, but on the off-chance that he finds himself close, Rin manages to pull Nitori from thin air and place him between the two of them, or else he just escapes to him whenever that isn't an option.

Nitori is the shield, Haruka finally understands.

It makes him feel miserable, because now he knows he's messed things up. The anticipation of seeing Rin back, the jittery dread, has turned into something cold and festering. Rin still hasn't looked at him.

He finds himself lurking against the wall once more, in the living room this time, since the brunt of the party seems to have moved into the kitchen – he left when Rei lost a game and had to drink a concoction of soy sauce, fish sauce, hot sauce, and cider. He's maybe sulking and maybe just wondering how much longer he's obliged to stay before he can go home. His cup of cider is empty, leaving him with nothing to pretend to be occupied with.

He doesn't see Kou until she's beside him.

"Mind if I join you?" she asks. "There are only so many boy activities I can handle in a night."

"Why didn't you bring a friend?" Haruka asks, realizing that while being the manager may make Kou an honorary member of the swim team, it also makes her the only girl here.

Kou shrugs. "Didn't know we could. I didn't know Nitori-kun was coming until he showed up at our house." She leans against the wall beside him, and now she has her manager face on – mostly the same, but stern around the edges. "Makoto-senpai says he thinks something's bothering you but that you probably don't want to talk about it, so he asked me to come check on you."

Haruka has always appreciated her bluntness, that much he can admit. Still, he doesn't want to be babysat. "Why didn't he come himself?"

She shrugs again, looks out over the room. A group of four plays cards in front of the TV; they've been at it for what seems like hours.

"Probably because I'm a girl and he thinks I'd be better at talking to you about whatever's bugging you. Don't worry, I'm not going to. That'd probably be a bit awkward."

"Probably," Haruka agrees.

"But," Kou continues, "my brother's been more storm-cloudy than usual these past few days, so I'd say if there's anyone you should talk to, it should be him. Or more like, you both would need to talk to each other. If that's the problem."

"It's usually the problem, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it usually is." Kou laughs, but it streams into a sigh. "Well, that's that," she says, pushing off the wall. "Task completed. I'll take it you'd like to be let back to your thoughts now?"

"I don't mind your company," Haruka says truthfully. He's starting to feel a little pathetic in his isolation, even more so because the only remedy would be to either join the card game or enter the kitchen where Rin is, and he doubts either would make him feel any better.

"Okay," Kou says brightly, and she steers him into an innocuous conversation about exams and spring break plans that manages to make him feel a little less pathetic. Makoto comes out of the kitchen a while later and looks surprised to see the two of them talking.

"It's done," he says with a smile to Kou, and then to Haruka he adds, "Haru, you should come too. We're done decorating the cake." He goes to inform the card players, and Kou nudges Haruka in the side.

"Come on. Let's go see what they've created."

The cake - all Nagisa's idea; Haruka doesn't know when he even found the time to make it - is hideous, and sweet, and sticks in Haruka's throat a bit on the way down, but he works through his entire slice because it's something to do. He takes a second piece under the pretext that he hasn't eaten much tonight, and retreats to the living room couch. Kou joins him soon after, looking worn and exasperated, and in the kitchen Haruka can hear the sounds of sugar highs kicking in.

He hears Rin laugh loudly at something, and takes a particularly large bite of cake, smearing icing onto the corners of his mouth.

"I'm tired," Kou says, slumping low into the cushions, and Haruka hums an agreement. They sit in silence for a while, Haruka nibbling on the rest of his cake even though it's starting to make him feel sick, Kou playing something on her phone.

And then suddenly Rin is standing at Kou's end of the couch, determinedly keeping his eyes on his sister and not the person sitting a few feet away.

"Gou, c'mon, we're going," he says. His throat sounds tight, like he's working hard to keep his voice low. "Remember what Mom said about tomorrow."

Kou springs to her feet, but Rin is already on his way to the door, Nitori in tow.

"Take care, Haruka-senpai," Kou says, and then she calls after her brother, "I have to say goodbye to the others!"

Rin lifts a hand over his head to show he's heard. Then he reaches for his coat on the stand.

Haruka finds himself standing, finds himself getting closer and closer to Rin.

Maybe it's the sugar. Maybe it's the talk he had with Kou.

Either way, he has to say  _something._

"Rin."

Rin freezes, shoulders rising. He turns. Meets Haruka's eyes, and seems too surprised to look away. Not angry. Not upset. Just surprised.

And Haruka hadn't actually planned anything to say, hadn't planned on seeing that expression, so he stands with his jaw loose, brain scrambling. "Are you –"

"Sorry, Haru," Rin says, regaining himself and giving an awkward laugh. "I gotta go. Some other time."

Haruka hardly notices the confused "Bye, Nanase-senpai" that comes from Nitori, hardly even notices Rin open the door and let in a burst of cold air, because he's replaying the laugh and the  _Some other time,_  and he doesn't think he's ever heard anything so empty.


	5. Impenetrable (Spring Break - part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major thanks to outfox for leaving the super kind comment yesterday that gave me the motivation to set aside my schoolwork and finish editing this!

It isn't avoidance, Haruka tells himself. If it was, Rin wouldn't have looked so shocked that Haruka spoke to him. It has to be something else. Or at least, if Rin was avoiding him at the party, it wasn't for what Haruka had thought. He doesn't think Rin is mad at him.

He wonders when this 'other time' Rin promised will come around, wonders if the ball is in Rin's court now, or if he's still the one who has to initiate contact.

Wonders why he's pretending Rin meant anything by it.

The morning after Nagisa's party, he's at the pool for hours. Teaching Hiro, then swimming laps when the lanes are set up, then just floating on his back staring at the strings of little blue and yellow flags that drape overhead, from one end of the pool to the other. As he stares, he thinks, but not deeply – thoughts that flit in and out of consistency, and have to do with Rin in a vague, frustrated way.

A few other swimmers are in the other lanes, but nobody pays him much attention. He hears the sounds of their strokes, the water lapping gently against the sides of the pool and into the gutters. And then, when he's been floating for who knows how long, he hears voices, a crowd. He tilts his head and sees a group of middle-aged men and women converging at the benches, laying down towels and putting on goggles. It's some sort of class, and he's finally chased from the pool.

He showers, goes home, and gets in the bath. His fingers and toes have hardly had the time to de-prune, but he can think of nothing else to do. Listless and disheartened, he rests the back of his head against the lip of the tub and wonders how he's going to go about things, though he feels too drained to try to come up with any definite answers.

Much later, when he turns out the light to go to bed, he's momentarily confused by the glow coming from his desk. When he realizes it's his phone, something lodges in his throat, jolting him out of his stupor.

The message is from Nagisa, succinct yet palpably brimming with energy:  _Ten o'clock, sharp!_

Haruka stares for a long moment, then he replies:  _I know_. The listlessness returns, heavier.

Had he actually thought it might have been Rin, or had he just lost his mind for a moment?

Sleep comes easily, which is a relief, and it's a surprise when he wakes up the next morning a little after nine. He's already told Hiro and Ishikawa-san that he won't be making it to the pool today, but he hadn't expected to sleep in. It seems that no matter the context, Rin can still manage to exhaust him.

Makoto is at his door just as he finishes a rushed breakfast, and soon they're on their way to their old school.

Planting flowers is (and at this point, is anything ever not?) Nagisa's idea. He took inspiration from the garden Haruka's class planted before their middle school graduation, and claims it's only fitting that the founding members of the Iwatobi High swim team do the same now that they're all going off in their own directions. It will symbolize a fresh start and a bright future, or something along those lines, Haruka can't quite remember.

When he and Makoto arrive, Nagisa, Rei, and Kou are gathered by the planting site, which is a patch of grass outside the pool fence, mostly protected by bushes, that the principal has granted them permission to renovate. There are several trays of yellow and orange flowers arranged haphazardly on the sidewalk, and some tools alongside them.

"Haru-chan! Mako-chan!" Nagisa calls, waving them over when he spots them. He's already decked out in gardening gloves and a visor for the sun, and is quick to order them all to work.

"But Nagisa-kun, you haven't informed us of the procedure," Rei says, looking down at the flowers with visible discomfort, likely trying and failing to come up with a formula that will help him with the task at hand.

"The grass," Haruka says. Everyone looks at him, though he doesn't know why they look so surprised – he manages the small garden at home just fine. "We have to strip it, to get to the soil."

"Right you are, Haru-chan!" Nagisa says, punching him not-so-gently in the arm. Everyone collects a spade – or in Rei's case, gets one shoved into his hands and then is lead by the arm onto the grass by Nagisa, who is saying soothingly, "They're just flowers, Rei-chan. This'll be fun, no grades involved."

Once they've dug up the grass and turned the soil, Nagisa leads them through the next steps, checking the directions written onto the back of his receipt by the florist he purchased the flowers from. Though spring has only just begun, the absence of clouds allows the sun to shine unfiltered, flushing their faces steadily pinker. With about half the flowers transplanted, they decide to take a break, and straighten their stiff backs with groans of protest.

"I don't know why you guys are all complaining," Kou says, rubbing at her neck. "You're supposed be in shape."

"The human body was not designed to be folded into such contorted positions for extended periods of time," Rei supplies, though the statement lacks the usual vivacity – no puffed chest, no fingers on the frames of his glasses, pushing them up his nose. Instead, he looks a bit droopy, like a flower that is wilting.

None of them was intelligent enough to bring water, so Kou and Makoto go off to the vending machines. Haruka thinks Nagisa has engaged Rei in a conversation about 'positions of the human body,' but he loses thread of that quickly. He brings the rest of the flower trays onto the grass, then sits beside them.

Orange and yellow. Happiness, joy, adventure, new beginnings, friendship. According to the lady at the flower shop, according to Nagisa. Some of the flowers look flimsy and fragile, petals hardly thicker than silk, bowed heads dragging thin stems into arches, while others reach upward, petals opened wide and exclamatory on top of thick stalks. Together, the effect is somehow cohesive rather than dissonant, somehow fitting for the fledgling Iwatobi team.

"How long did it feel weird, knowing you wouldn't be swimming in this pool again, Haru-chan?"

When Nagisa had ended up crouched down beside him, Haruka doesn't know. Nagisa's arms are around his knees, and his question is curious. A hint of wistfulness in his eyes. He gives a quiet smile that seems to age him before Haruka's eyes, and Haruka has to remind himself that no matter how buoyant, Nagisa is growing up too, leaving things behind if favor of the future.

He shrugs, looks back at the flowers. Sticks his finger in a bit of damp dirt. "It's still weird sometimes." In his peripherals, he sees Rei crouch down on Nagisa's other side.

"I still find it bizarre, from time to time, to think that I allowed you all to teach me how to swim," Rei says.

"Well, I dunno if one stroke counts as being able to swim," Nagisa says with humor. Then he sighs, plucks a few blades of grass. "I invited Rin-chan, but he said he was busy." He sounds pouty, almost petulant. Haruka wonders if it is a ploy, because when he glances over, Nagisa is looking at him, and looks away just as their eyes meet.

He would have preferred not to know that Rin was invited at all. Would have preferred not to know that Nagisa likely knows what Makoto has known for months – that there is something going on, and that it involves Rin, and that it involves him. Which is really all  _he_  knows, it's gotten so muddled and frustrating.

The fact that it's Nagisa that shows this awareness, though, is troubling for a reason he can't quite pinpoint. He knows Nagisa isn't ignorant and he knows Nagisa isn't a child, but Nagisa isn't Makoto either, and Haruka doesn't want to be on the lookout for knowing glances from the most carefree of the bunch.

 _It's my business; stop nosing your way in,_ he almost wants to say, and then feels guilty for thinking it.

Makoto and Kou signal their return with the sound of giggling. Haruka turns to see their arms loaded full of water bottles, their elbows bumping as they walk, as though the extra weight has unbalanced them.

"The machine gave us extras," Kou says, voice jumpy with held-in laughter, when she reaches the edge of the grass. She kneels down and lets the bottles roll out of her arms. Whatever she's talking about must be really funny, because Makoto dissolves into laughter and a few of the bottles tumble out of his arms before he can hurriedly put the rest down.

Haruka stops one before it rolls into the flowerbed. He looks at them both quizzically. Kou is hunched over, clutching her stomach. Makoto drops gracelessly onto the grass and covers his face with a hand as he laughs and laughs and laughs.

After several moments, Haruka finds a reluctant smile pulling at his lips.

"Man, I hate missing things like this!" Nagisa bursts out, and Rei asks, stunned, "What could you two possible have done to the machine?"

"There's more," Makoto manages to choke out, taking his hand away from his face just long enough to motion back the way he and Kou had come.

"What?!" Nagisa jumps up. "It's still going?! Oh my gosh, Rei-chan, we have to go see!"

"Why are we running to look at a dysfunctional vending machine?" Rei yells as he's pulled, stumbling, to his feet and then away.

When Kou and Makoto manage to quell their laughter, they are both red-faced and breathless. Kou topples onto her side in the grass, stares at the flowerbed with watery eyes.

"I'm going to miss this place," she says, voice still rich but losing energy. She gives a lazy wave of her hand. "I mean, I can still come here. I'll be back weekends now and then. But not being a student here anymore, I don't think it's sunk in yet. Wonder if my new school will have defective vending machines."

Nobody says anything right away. When Kou leaves for school – though she won't be far, just an hour and a half away; it'll be easier to live near campus than to commute each day – that'll leave three of them. Haruka, Makoto, and Nagisa. Which is how they started this journey, wasn't it? To re-establish the swim team, to become the unit they are now.

Then had come Kou, and when she leaves she'll be the closest.

Then had come Rei, and when he leaves he'll be farther, but Tokyo is still in the country.

And last had come Rin, and now every time he leaves there is an ocean between them again.

It's like they're going back to the start, history folding back on itself yet not taking away any time, just proximity. Even the rift between him and Rin, born out of miscommunication itself, born out of a lack of real understanding of each other, born in early January, is the same on a superficial level as it had been all those winters ago.

"Remember all the way back at the beginning of my first year?" Kou says, her voice dissolving Haruka's thoughts. He meets her eyes and she frowns at him, though it looks staged. "You didn't open the door for me when I went to your house that first time after school. Remember?"

Haruka remembers the ring of the bell, yes. "When I let you in the next day you just ogled my muscles for the first five minutes."

Her frown twitches into a grin, and she laughs. "Yeah, yeah. Still. I was ringing the bell for like, five minutes." She sits up, tosses her hair over her shoulder. "And Nagisa-kun actually ran into me earlier that morning! Literally  _ran_  into me. And he didn't even notice who I was! You guys were very unwelcoming, you know."

"I saw you on the roof," Makoto says.

"Eh?! You did?"

By now Haruka is lost again, but it's clear that Kou and Makoto are on the same page.

Makoto nods. "You and Hanamura-chan. You didn't notice me, but I could tell you wanted to talk to Haru. I wasn't surprised to see you at his door when Nagisa and I got there."

"Wow," Kou muses. She taps her chin with her index finger, eyes lifting skyward. "That makes it sound almost like fate."

When Rei and Nagisa return, Rei is carrying a precarious pile of bottles in his arms, and Nagisa has lifted the bottom of his shirt and carries the rest in his makeshift pouch.

"Pray tell," Rei is saying, "what are we possibly going to do with such a large quantity of bottled water?"

But Nagisa is ready with an answer, which he supplies as he releases the hem of his shirt and the bottles tumble onto the grass – "Keep it for the picnic!"

* * *

"Haru-chan, I'm winning! You're so slow!"

Hiro's voice bounces off the walls of the pool room, making the empty space feel full and raucous. He's swimming backstroke over the width of the pool in the five foot section, Haruka kicking along on his back beside him.

"Remember your markers," Haruka says. "Get ready to turn."

He stands up to watch just in case, but Hiro disappears under the water and performs a competent, if not slightly rough, turn. Ishikawa-san, sitting with her feet in the water nearby, applauds when he breaks the surface.

Ishikawa-san has gotten very involved in monitoring Hiro's progress, often times taking to watching him practice with Haruka after she's completed her laps. She no longer insists on Hiro wearing the floaters he doesn't even need before Haruka arrives, and on mornings when the lanes haven't been laid out for some reason or other, she lets Hiro practice as far in as the five foot section. Her enthusiasm gives Haruka some confidence, makes him feel slightly competent as a teacher.

When the 'race' is over, Ishikawa-san stands up, still clapping, and Hiro grins at her. "Can we do one more race?" he calls, but she crosses her arms.

"And make me late to work? I don't think so, young man."

"Awww," Hiro whines, but he starts swimming over to the stairs. Haruka knows he isn't really upset – he gets to spend his days at his grandmother's during break, and by the sound of it she spoils him rotten.

He waves at Hiro and Ishikawa-san when they disappear into the locker room, then sets off to do some laps. Not ten minutes later, though, he spots Ishikawa-san standing by the deep end, a large bag over one shoulder and a purse over the other, damp hair up in a professional-looking bun. She's clearly waiting for him, shifting her weight from foot to foot, so when he reaches the wall he climbs out.

"Hiro's up front with Kaji-san," she says before Haruka can ask. Her smile is eager, like she's about to divulge something very exciting. "He's turning in an application for summer lessons. Kaji-san told us you would be instructing; Hiro can't wait."

"Ah…good," Haruka says. He decides not to mention that he hasn't turned in his own application yet. It seems that Kaji-san has been getting ahead of himself.

Ishikawa-san's smile softens. "Nanase-kun, thank you for all that you've taught Hiro. He truly looks forward to swimming with you. He talks about you all the time; I'm sure some people must think you're an older brother." She gives a quiet laugh, likely remembering an instance of this happening. "It has been a great weight off of my shoulders, seeing him enjoy himself so much and knowing I don't have to worry about him in the water. I can't leave him home alone in the morning, and I took him out of daycare some time ago because it was beginning to cost too much, but this is a much better place for him. And it makes me so happy to see him picking up a sport this eagerly."

"He's a natural swimmer." Haruka doesn't know what else to say to everything else she's told him, the weight of her sincerity. She makes it sound as though he's done something far more impressive than teach her son a few strokes – which has really only been possible because Hiro is such a quick learner himself. "He could join a team with a bit more practice, if he wanted to."

Ishikawa-san beams. "I'll make sure to tell him you said so. He'll be very pleased." One strap of her bag slips to the crook of her elbow, revealing the bright towels inside, and she hoists it back up again. "I do have to be getting to work now, and there's Hiro to drop off first, but I had to thank you for everything. Especially as I haven't repaid you in any way."

Haruka shakes his head. "That isn't necessary. I like teaching him. I don't need anything."

"Thank you, Nanase-kun." She looks for a moment like she wants to reach out, maybe rest a hand on his shoulder, something motherly. But she simply smiles, nods. "Hiro and I will see you tomorrow morning?"

"Yes, I'll be here," Haruka says. "See you tomorrow."

He watches her leave, then crouches into position to dive back into the pool. He feels a lightness in his arms and legs, or maybe a kind of contained energy. He tenses his muscles, ready to leap, and feels like he could even soar over the entire pool if he wanted to. It's a wonderful feeling, and when he hits the water he thinks he figures out what it is.

The feeling of being appreciated. Of doing something that matters to other people. Of  _meaning_  something. Finding purpose.

* * *

"About time, Nanase!" Kaji-san says, when Haruka places the application form on his desk. "I was gettin' ready to send someone after ya, to make sure you hadn't thrown these away or somethin'!"

"You shouldn't tell people I'm an instructor," Haruka says. "I haven't turned in my paperwork yet."

"Y'have now," Kaji-san says, swiping the application off the desk and wheeling to the back wall, where he slips it into one of the filing cabinets. "Expect a phone call sometime within the next two weeks. We'll schedule an interview then."

He sends Haruka off with two thumbs up. Haruka keeps his expression flat more for show than anything else, but once in the parking lot he lets out a breath. It feels like relief, a floating feeling off his chest, and he savors it while it lasts.

He stops by the market before hopping on the train, and by the time he's walking up the block to Nagisa's house, his gut is twisting in a now-familiar nervous anticipation. Nagisa's mother opens the door for him, welcomes him inside with a warm smile and tells him the others are in the kitchen.

He slips off his shoes and lines them up with everyone else's by the door. Then he heads toward the kitchen, where he hears the welcoming sounds of easy conversation. It's a shame he'll be bringing an end to that.

Kou and Rei are at the stove, directly across from the entranceway. The island counter behind them is covered with plastic containers and cutlery and food scraps. Makoto, Nagisa, and Rin are by the wall to the left.

In the moment before he notices Haruka there, Rin is smiling. He's leaning against the wall, responding to whatever Makoto is saying in front of him, hands in the pockets of his jacket. And then his eyes drift away from the group, catch Haruka, and his entire demeanor changes. He adopts the panicky look of a cornered animal, spine going very straight and body going very still.

Nagisa and Makoto, on the other hand, look more than pleased to see him.

"Haru-chan, wow, hi! Did you even ring the doorbell?" Nagisa says, bounding over to him.

Haruka watches Rin slip away to where his sister and Rei are, and pretends not to. "I did. Your mom answered the door."

"Well, come on in and find somewhere to put your stuff. Be careful of the knives. They're kind of…everywhere, I guess. Hm, maybe we should clean them up."

"Right," Haruka says. He lets Nagisa guide him to the island counter so he can put down his bag.

"You can use the stove after Gou-chan and Rei-chan are done. Everyone's done cooking except you and –"

"Nagisa-kun, how in the world do you turn on your oven?" Kou calls, stealing Nagisa's attention.

"Er, good question?" Nagisa says, flitting over to the stove. Haruka hears him say, "I think it's this," to which Rei exclaims, "But that's exactly what I told you, Gou-san!" to which Kou says, "That's absolutely  _not_  what you said."

But he stops paying attention before Rin can pitch in, if he even does. He joins Makoto by the wall, gets a small smile in greeting, one that is all too perceptive and hardly happy enough. "They're not making you cook, are they?" he asks Makoto, before Makoto can ask him anything instead.

"No. I brought all the equipment in the living room."

Haruka hadn't even noticed it. "Help me prep?" he says. Makoto nods, and they begin clearing things off of the island. At one point, Haruka spares a glance across the counter at Rin, finds Rin looking at him and then looking away when their eyes meet.

He feels a twist in his gut, and it might be hopelessness this time, because he has no idea what kind of look that had been – too quick and too flighty, that's all. They are no more than five feet from each other, but they might as well be on opposite sides of the house. Still, Rin had looked at him. It's a start.

Rin's pseudo-promise of _S_ _ome other time_ plays through his head as he and Makoto chop vegetables, then dice fish – Makoto very, very carefully – and he hopes that 'some other time' is today. It has to be - there's hardly any time left. The horrible ants-up-his-arms feeling is back.

"I turned in the form," he says, to take his mind off of it.

Makoto looks up from the piece of fish he's bent low over, the tense concentration on his forehead lifting away. "Really?" At Haruka's nod, he breaks into a genuine smile. "That's great, Haru."

They grate ginger, measure spices and sauces, and then Kou appears between them, oven mitts on. "Mind if we switch work stations?" she asks. "My cake's done, and Rei-kun's almost done too."

As Haruka and Makoto transfer all their things to the counter next to the stove, Rin makes it back to the other side of the room, where he hovers behind Nagisa, who hovers in front of Kou's cake. ("Hands off," Kou says, swatting Nagisa away.)

"Hello, Haruka-senpai," Rei says when Haruka takes up post beside him, but he seems much more focused on the pot in front of him.

"What are you making?" Haruka asks. It looks like a stew, and smells heavily spiced.

"An old family recipe," is all Rei offers. His glasses are steaming up, and he stirs the pot with the intensity of someone who is following a very specific set of procedures.

"That's all he'd tell me, too," Kou says, materializing once again between Haruka and Makoto. "What are you making, Haruka-senpai?"

"Mackerel stir fry."

"It's better than you'd think," Makoto adds, to which Kou shrugs.

"I've learned to never doubt Haruka-senpai when it comes to mackerel."

Haruka lets Makoto get distracted by Kou, no longer needing his help with the cooking. Soon the two of them drift away towards the corner of the kitchen, and then it's just Haruka and Rei, cooking in companionable silence. Companionable on Haruka's end, at least. He's not sure if Rei is aware of anything beyond his stew.

Haruka tries not to be aware of anything behind him, like Rin speaking in undertones to Nagisa and Nagisa, worryingly, speaking in undertones back, which is a Very Bad Sign. He wishes the vegetables would cook louder.

A timer on Rei's watch goes off, prompting Rei to turn off the heat. "Cover the lid and set aside," he mutters to himself, doing just that. Then he leaves his post with a declaration of, "Nagisa-kun, I have finished."

Haruka doesn't turn to look, but he can imagine the overly cheerful grin that accompanies Nagisa's next words: "Great, Rei-chan. Okay Rin-chan, you're up."

Haruka hears Rin hiss a clearly distressed " _Nagisa!_ " but the next moment Nagisa has steered Rin over to the stove and deposited him where Rei had just been.

Oh, Haruka thinks. So that's what they were muttering about.

He seems to have lost the ability to turn his head, as though his body's gone so taught it's left him paralyzed. It seems the same thing has happened to Rin, judging by the stillness Haruka can sense even if he can't look at it. If anyone were to look at them now – and he's sure they are – it would be glaringly obvious that something is wrong. He can feel the tension of a thousand rubber bands pulled to a straining point between them.

"Okay, well, when the two of them are cooking, the rest of us can organize the stuff we're bringing to the park," Nagisa says. Haruka notices that his voice has lost some of its buoyancy, and he feels a grudging satisfaction at the thought that whatever ploy of Nagisa's he's been thrown into against his will isn't going as planned.

Then again, he had been hoping for the chance to talk to Rin, hadn't he? And yet here he is clamming up. He wants to sigh, but is also uncharacteristically timid of making a sound in Rin's presence.

The others leave the kitchen. Rin starts heating up a pan. Haruka adds the mackerel to his stir fry.

Slowly, and it feels like he has to battle the silence to do so, he dredges up the ability to speak.

"What are you making?" he asks, directing the question at the stovetop and feeling painfully awkward. More than awkward. It's like speaking to someone he doesn't know.

Rin clears his throat. "Just something my roommate at school taught me," he says. "It's hard to find all the ingredients around here, but we'll see, I guess."

His voice is light and inauthentic, the exact same tone he had used at the party. The words have no weight and lose form the moment they're spoken. They fill up the air with a strange void. Haruka's already forgotten what he said.

He tries again, managing a glance in Rin's direction this time. "How is your break going?"

Rin doesn't look up from his pan. His tone goes clipped. Defensive. Corners of his mouth pulled down. "Fine."

Haruka looks away. He doesn't understand. Rin hasn't fled the room, is right beside him, closer than they've been in months. But his answers make it clear that he has nothing to say.

 _Are you ever going to talk to me?_ Haruka wants to ask.  _I can't fix things on my own, you know. You're a part of this, too._

"Rin –"

"Can you hand me that spoon?" Rin says, pointing at a container of wooden cooking utensils on Haruka's side of the stove. "Thanks," he says, when Haruka passes one over.

The main constant with Rin and conversation has always been that Rin does the talking first, and then Haruka figures out how to respond. Now that he's the one trying to figure out what to say, his mind whirs in useless circles.

He realizes his hands are shaking when he tries to pick up the small ceramic bowl with the soy sauce he's measured out and fumbles it. It hits the countertop, not breaking but spilling its contents, which drip onto the floor. Rin stiffens, but does little else as Haruka lets out a short breath and starts to clean up.

He moves mechanically, tossing away the soiled paper towels, heading to the fridge for more soy sauce. He stares at the bottle in the door for a long while before he realizes he's letting too much cold escape, and that he's clenching his jaw. He's so distracted that he bangs his hip against the corner of the island counter on the way back to the stove, and he bites off the end of a curse as the pain flares up his side.

Rin turns at the sound, seems to forget for a moment that he's trying not to look at Haruka – and in the moment he forgets, he looks alarmed.

"Are you –" he starts, but he realizes his slip-up and shutters back off. He turns with a jerk of his shoulder back to the stove.

Haruka rejoins him, sets the soy sauce down with too much force, the jarring sound of glass on tile making Rin wince.

"I'm fine," he says, voice tight and angry and clearly not fine at all. The strain in the space between them has gotten impossibly tenser, and makes Haruka's head even more jumbled. When he picks up the spatula he's been using, his grip is too strong, and for a second he wants to launch it out the window.

He doesn't even know who he's angry at, and he's so  _tired_  of feeling this way. He's afraid that every word he says will bounce off of Rin's skin, only to pelt back at him, crowd around him. The thought makes the air thicken, or maybe it's his throat closing, or maybe it's his heartbeat picking up, a rapid pattering thrum. He feels suddenly too hot, or too cold, too cloistered, or maybe too vastly alone, like the Rin standing beside him doesn't even exist. Like he could shuffle five inches over and not feel Rin's shoulder come into contact with his.

Hands clammy, he throws together the rest of the stir fry and rushes out of the kitchen, leaving Rin alone.

* * *

The picnic, by some twist of horrible, horrible luck, manages to be more miserable than the party had been.

The high point is probably when Rin opens one of the coolers and gets a very peculiar look on his face, before spitting out, "Why the hell are there so many water bottles in here?" Haruka doesn't manage a smile, though, not even inwardly.

Apart from that, they eat, and the other four talk while Haruka and Rin sit on opposite sides of the picnic blanket and say next to nothing at all. It's another sunny spring day, though there's a slight edge to the warmth, materializing in short puffs of cool air that rustle the trees together musically. The air smells fresh, like pre-rain. It's a beautiful day, ironically.

And Haruka can no longer muster the energy – or maybe the hope – to tell himself it isn't avoidance.

Rin is avoiding him.

And he  _hates_  it.

It's maddening, how Rin twists everything up, makes everything such a hopeless mess in his head. All his thoughts run together, only to be replaced by the sounds of the leaves. The one thing he can grasp, though, is that he likes nothing about this Rin.

Rin is proximity, too loud and too arrogant and too pushy at all the wrong times. Rin is physicality, arm slung over Haruka like it belongs there, like he's made Haruka his personal leaning post because that's just how things are  _supposed to_   _be_. Haruka feels like he's lost an anchor, or just too much weight, without Rin stooping him over all the time. With Rin treating him like something to be afraid of.

When they play soccer, it's Rin and Nagisa against the rest of them, and Rin attaches himself to Makoto instead of Haruka, and Haruka doesn't try very hard to do much of anything. He and Kou eventually end up at the edge of what has turned into a two-on-two match, and only then does Haruka see Rin cast off some of his armor and let loose. Elbows and shoulders with everyone, quick feet and a lack of regard for personal space.

And even if he's just pretending to be at ease, he does it much more convincingly when Haruka isn't near him.

Is it even okay to miss things like Rin's touch? Things like Rin trying to push him away to steal the soccer ball? Or something underhanded - Rin grabbing the back of his shirt to slow him down, because losing is never an option?

Is he even allowed to think like that anymore, or is it wrong?

Is it selfish?

Is he cruel?

Kou makes a soft, scoffing sound beside him, and he looks over in surprise. Arms crossed, she's starring with slightly narrowed eyes at her brother and doesn't notice Haruka's attention at all. Haruka is taken aback, and wonders what in the world could be going on between them. Wonders if Rin is avoiding more than one confrontation.

"Maybe you two should talk about it," Makoto says later, sitting on the picnic blanket with Haruka while the others play Frisbee. He doesn't sugarcoat his worry with a false smile, nor does he try to mask the plea in his tone.

"How are we supposed to talk," Haruka says sharply, "if he won't talk to me?"

Makoto doesn't have an answer. He just keeps looking at Haruka, maybe pityingly and maybe hopelessly. Haruka looks away, feeling guilty for snapping.

He hears the sounds of raised voices in the field, and turns to see Kou and Rin arguing on one of the knolls, Frisbee forgotten on the ground between them. Rei and Nagisa stands awkwardly aside, as Kou raises her hands over her head and says something sharp. Their words don't reach the picnic blanket, but their body language does – Kou standing a bit higher up on the hill, so she's looking down on her brother; Rin with his arms crossed tightly, chin up as he snarls something back.

"Are we ruining today?" Haruka asks. It had been meant to be a nice, easy get-together before Rei and Kou pack up to leave. Instead, it's become some fractured mess.

He meets Makoto's eyes, and Makoto's smile is back to sugarcoating. "You're not. It's just very noticeable."

It's ridiculous, that's what it is. It is – to take a leaf out of Rin's book – fucking stupid as shit.

Haruka decides then and there that, for once, he just needs to take Rin's place and be the pushy one. He's sick of this stupid routine of treading around each other, sick of being something so glaringly broken for the others to look at, and especially sick of working himself further and further into the dead end that is his thoughts.

The sky has lost most of its saturation by the time they've finished packing up to leave. It seems to hover overhead on pause, pale and washed out before the jewel tones can bleed in. Quiet, calming, blank.

He watches Rin bend to pick up the cooler, watches as Rei takes it instead, leaving Rin empty handed. He finishes folding up the blanket, pushes it into Makoto's arms. Makoto catches his eye, presses his lips together in a somber caricature of a smile that Haruka knows means  _Good luck_.

The others start toward the street, but Haruka stands still, watching their backs. And then he focuses on Rin's back in particular, slightly behind Rei and Nagisa, maybe twenty yards away. He swallows, hoping to quell the mounting nerves.

"Rin." Under the quiet sky, his voice travels easily.

Rin freezes, an action that is now so very predictable, and though seeing it makes Haruka want to sigh, instead he says, "Wait."


	6. Immediate (Spring Break - part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel awkward rewording the notes I posted on ffn here, but copy/pasting my notes would be even more awkward, so... 
> 
> I am now officially a college graduate and just got myself a job the other day, so I have been busy, but I haven't been neglecting this fic! It gets a little bit of work almost every day, and I can't say enough how much I appreciate everyone's patience. As for this chapter, it is actually the penultimate in the spring break section, instead of the ultimate like I had intended. I didn't want to spend another decade editing something that ended up being nearly thirty pages, so this is the first part of that, and the second will be edited and up in about a week, give or take a bit. 
> 
> Also: /OBLIGATORY SPAZZ ABOUT ETERNAL SUMMER!!!/

It might be amusing in any other situation, how everyone sort of half-turns toward him, as though he's called all their names as well. At least Makoto doesn't look confused like the rest of them; he just looks like he shares Haruka's ever-mounting worry, a pinched look to his face that doesn't inspire Haruka with much confidence.

Rin looks very pale and very nervous, like some skittish creature that wants to scamper away but can't figure out which direction to go across the field that engulfs them from all sides.

Makoto reaches for Rei and takes him by the elbow, then mutters something around Rei to Nagisa, who nods quickly in understanding. Kou needs no explanation of what's going on, and starts to lead them away without a word.

"Wait, what're you guys doing?" Rin says.

Haruka sees Makoto flinch, likely feeling guilty about abandoning Rin like this, but he keeps on walking.

"What's – what's going on?" Rin says, tone growing panicked. He's turned completely toward the others, so that all Haruka can see is his back. His shadow stretches out behind him, just an insubstantial smudge of the person Haruka is trying to reach.

Kou stops walking, turns abruptly to face her brother. When the others stop too, she waves them off. "Just go. I'll catch up," she tells them, giving an extra shoo when they hesitate, actually having to give Makoto a push to get him moving. Once they're all heading toward the street, she glares at Rin. " _We_  are leaving  _you_  here, to talk to Haruka-senpai, who you've clearly been avoiding. Which is  _really_  pathetic of you."

Rin makes a meek sound. Tries again, and manages an incredulous, "What?"

Kou gives a harsh laugh. "Stop playing stupid. It's hard to watch." Then, after taking a loud breath, she says it again, more pleading this time: "It's hard to watch. For all of us. So you're not going to run away this time. Seriously, Onii-chan, you're staying here."

"You can't – you can't make me!" Rin says, voice cracking. The sunlight angles down and breaks over the top of his head, making him hard to look at, like he's gone fuzzy. "I don't have to talk to him because you say so!"

It's hearing Rin call him 'him' instead of 'Haru' that is the worst part, worse even than being spoken about like he isn't there listening to everything. It's like he is Haru to one degree less, like part of his identity has taken away from him, leaving him feeling bruised and battered from within.

"You're friends!" Kou shrieks, the pitch so startling because even though she can be loud, Haruka has never heard her sounding this venomously out of control. Her cheeks are reddening, and even at this distance – thirty yards, forty – he can see a fire in her eyes that makes her look dangerous. Far behind her, near the edge of the field, Haruka sees Makoto take hold of both Nagisa and Rei's shoulders to keep them walking.

"I can't believe you!" Kou is yelling. "The big brother I know has done some pretty stupid things, but this level of pathetic makes me embarrassed to even be related to you! You should be ashamed! You should be embarrassed!"

"You don't – I – you –" Rin's hands curl into fists, his shoulders rise in agitation. "You have no right to get involved! None of this has to do with you!"

"What is  _wrong_  with you?!"

"Nothing's wrong with me!" Rin shouts, with so much force that the words sound like they grate their way out of his throat. Haruka can't see his face, but he imagines a wild-eyed snarl. "You have no idea what's going on!"

"He misses you, you idiot! You're not even paying attention, which is why whatever's going on with you guys is just getting worse!" Kou flings her arms up over her head. "I'm sick of watching you run around with your head up your ass –  _don't_  say anything, you swear _all_ the time – screwing things up even more! Start acting your age and  _do something!_  Or I won't be able to forgive you!"

She whips her hair over her shoulder and stalks away. The park seems to get larger the farther she gets, until she looks centimeters high and her shadow stretches tall behind her. She is at the street before long, turns the corner on the sidewalk, and eventually goes out of sight behind some trees.

Which leaves just Haruka and Rin and the grass all around them, slowly turning yellow with the sky. The park is quiet; the other visitors have packed up and left.

Rin doesn't turn around.

"Stop avoiding me," Haruka says. His voice sounds like someone else's, or like it's just materialized in the air – he doesn't remember the feeling of moving his mouth. There is a low rush in his ears - his heart racing, willing Rin to look at him.

"Stop avoiding me," he says again, a bit louder. He starts to take a step but second guesses it. Curls his fingers, uncurls them. His fingernails leave a lingering burn in his palms. "I don't – I'm not angry, or anything, I don't know." His voice shakes. "I don't know what you think I am, but I'm not.  _Rin_."

Rin tips his head back. Haruka doesn't know if he hears the breath Rin lets out or if it's another breeze passing through. And then Rin turns.

Everything in his expression is hardened. His eyes are glaring and his mouth is a thin, tense line, but Haruka knows him too well and can make out every crack. The fear, the distress, the desire to be anywhere else.

"I don't care if you like me," Haruka says, with a tumbling feeling in his chest because it's the first time he's said it out loud.

Rin's eyes narrow, like he's looking for the lie. "You really don't?" he says, skepticism brimming from every syllable. "Because you had two months – two and a  _half_  – to tell me that. But you didn't."

Haruka feels like he's been punched, the air knocked out of him, his breath struggling to get to his lungs. "I know. I'm – I was stupid. I needed to think. I was surprised."

Rin just stares at him, and Haruka wants to hit himself. Of all words, he chooses  _surprised_?

"I'm sorry," Haruka says. That foggy feeling from the kitchen earlier today is twisting back through his brain, melding urgency with an inability to find anything to say. "Please, Rin. I'm sorry. I'm  _sorry_. I just want to talk to you."

Haruka can see the challenge in Rin's eyes, and realizes distantly that Rin is giving him the chance to prove himself. His throat starts to burn; he's afraid he's going to cry. "You're still Rin. You're Rin. You're my friend. I don't want to lose you again."

Rin's entire expression crumples, like Haruka shattered his armor mask. Haruka feels like he's watching in slow-motion, hardly daring to believe he found the words to do that. Now Rin looks very much like  _he's_ going to cry, lower lip held firmly in his teeth, hands fisted at his sides.

"I don't want to lose you again either," Rin says, sounding choked.

"Then don't," Haruka says quickly. His heart beats a vicious, hopeful heat, raising the hairs all over his body. He wants to run forward, take Rin by his jacket and shake him and make him understand that the last thing he ever wants is to lose him again.

He takes a few steps, and when Rin doesn't show any alarm he walks the rest of the way, until they're close enough that he could reach out and truly grab Rin's jacket, but he doesn't. The sky feels closer than ever before, the golden hue getting richer and thicker and making Rin's hair orange.

"I was scared," Rin says, voice hardly louder than a breath.

"Me too," Haruka says. "But I'm not anymore. You can like me. I'm not saying it won't change anything, but I don't – I don't want it to change them in a bad way. "

Rin's eyes are watery, and he rubs his fists into them. "I missed you," he says thickly.

Haruka feels a flood of warmth so strong he's afraid it's going to block his airway. "Me too."

"I can't help it," Rin says, heels of his palms now fixed firmly over his eyes. "How I feel. I don't wanna mess things up, but I can't help it."

_It's okay,_  Haruka wants to say.  _You're okay. Don't cry. Please, I hate it when you're sad._

He steels himself and reaches out, takes hold of one of Rin's wrists. When Rin doesn't respond, Haruka pulls Rin's hand away from his face, and Rin lowers the other one himself. His eyes are red, but still mostly dry – he's trying valiantly to keep the tears at bay.

"So stop avoiding me," Haruka says. He gives Rin's wrist a squeeze, is almost surprised by the solidity of it, the fact that Rin is really here. "Or else we'll both keep messing things up."

Rin gives a small nod. "Okay."

Haruka lets go, and Rin's eyes flicker nervously away, a faint crease forming between his eyebrows.

Haruka finds himself sighing. The sound, surprisingly, elicits a twist of the lips from Rin – a depreciating expression, not truly a smile.

"We're so fucking stupid," Rin says.

"Yeah," Haruka agrees. His brain struggles for something to add, and he hears himself spit out, "We should try to be smart."

Humor comes slowly to life in Rin's face, though his gaze is still elsewhere. "We're too stupid to even know what that means."

Haruka almost laughs. He lets out a sound, something loud and quick through his nose, maybe relief and maybe exasperation. "We should still try."

Rin gives another nod. He looks at Haruka, and finally, _finally_ smiles. "Okay."

It's shaky, but it's a start. Not an end, nowhere close to where they're going to have to go, but it's a first hurdle behind them.

Rin scratches the back of his head a bit awkwardly, says, "We should probably get to the station." And then it's just the two of them in a park, with places to go. Time has resumed, night is catching up to them.

Leaving the park side by side with Rin, Haruka feels like he's found his way back somewhere he belongs, but that he's forgotten what being here used to feel like. Their shoulders don't touch, Rin doesn't talk. There is a buffer space. It doesn't make him uncomfortable per se, but it does make him hyperaware of everything – the placement of his feet on the sidewalk, the minute, practically unconscious twitches of his fingers, the weight of his eyelashes coming together when he blinks.

The way to the station is lined with small houses and businesses, their windows opaque with the glare of early evening. Everything is that orange-yellow hue now, the sky finally settled down to the very ground so that the air looks the color of syrup, though it's really just the tint on the whitewash of the buildings. What's more surreal is that Haruka knows neither he nor Rin will speak, so it's almost like neither of them are there. If he looks over, Rin might have just vanished into the air, dispersed into the glow of everything.

But they make it to the train station together, climb the steps up to the platform, never once jostling.

They wait for the train in silence, too, standing beneath the metal overhang, in front of the vending machines and facing the opposite platform, where a group of teenage girls sits giggling on one of the benches. Makoto and the others clearly caught a previous train, or else went off somewhere else, because they're nowhere in sight.

The earlier gusts of wind are becoming more streamlined and constant, ruffling Haruka's hair. A springtime rain is in the air, and on the horizon, above treetops that look sharp as arrows, are thick gray clouds.

"Do you want something to drink?" Haruka asks, turning to the machine behind them and fishing out his wallet. He sticks some money into the slot and punches the button for a hot coffee. It clatters into the tray, and when he picks up the can it sends instant heat through his fingertips.

Rin is looking at him dubiously, a frown that only increases when Haruka holds the can out to him.

"I don't drink coffee," Haruka says, which is easier to say than  _It's for you_. He gives the can a shake, hopes he can tempt Rin into accepting the small peace offering. Though they've already made peace... He just feels like he has to work toward maintaining it now.

Belatedly, Rin takes it and mutters a thanks. "You didn't have to get me one," he says, but he cracks the lid open and takes a long sip.

"It's just so you don't get cold."

Rin lowers the can, cradles it in his bare hands. Quirks an eyebrow. "Didn't say I was cold."

"You can't catch a cold before the term starts."

Rin rolls his eyes, drinks more coffee to hide a smile he can't erase.

Haruka knows that months ago there would have been so many words passing between them, or from Rin to him, but now they drift back into silence, facing the opposite platform again. He can feel words forming on the very back of his tongue, lining up waiting to be deployed, but none of those words take form in his mind, and so he swallows away the sensation every time it appears.

* * *

He sinks into a daze on the train, the wheels over the bumps in the tracks providing a constant, gentle jostle. They sit on the bench beside the door, backs to the window. Their compartment is otherwise empty, and the light flickering overhead gives off a faint static sound.

At the stop before Haruka's, when the doors close and the crisp air stops spreading into the compartment, Rin finally speaks up.

"I'm not –" he starts, but he cuts himself short.

Haruka blinks, and the window across the way comes back into focus, showing a dusky landscape beyond: houses passing in snatches, all lit from within, yellow square windows. Rin is looking at the can in his hands between his knees, his head bowed. His hair falls into his face, but not enough to hide the tense set to his mouth.

"I'm not gonna, you know, try to do anything to you just because, you know. I won't – I wouldn't –"

"I know," Haruka says quickly, heartbeat picking up at the implications of what Rin is saying.

Rin turns his head, has the look in his eyes again that says he's trying to make sure he can believe what Haruka said. Haruka knows he'd be useless with words, and hopes whatever is on his face will give whatever assurance Rin needs.

Rin nods once. "Okay. Good." He turns his head jerkily away, sets his jaw, and stares out the opposite window.

Silence again, until they reach Haruka's stop. The train slows as it pulls into the station, and Rin stands first, which gives Haruka a moment of pause – he hadn't thought Rin would be getting off with him, and wonders if Rin intends to come over. But when they reach the doors, Rin stands aside to let him pass.

Haruka steps onto the platform and turns back to Rin, who looks down at him from the top step.

"So," Rin says. He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, stuffs his hands in his pockets. Frowns - an attempt to cover his awkwardness. "We're cool, then."

Haruka nods. "Yeah."

The train lets off a blast of air.

"So then, if I text you, you'll answer," Rin says.

Haruka knows they're probably thinking the same thing – Rin will be gone by the end of the week, and will they see each other before that happens?

"When I see the text," Haruka says.

Rin brings a hand to his forehead. "You're so fucking hopeless," he mutters, and Haruka isn't sure if he's meant to hear or not. But then Rin lowers his hand, pins him with a hard look, and says, "And you can message me too, you know."

"I don't have things to say," Haruka says.

"Haru! Talk about the weather, I don't fucking care." It's mostly exasperation, but Rin's expression quickly goes weary. "But Haru, seriously. I live across the ocean now. Can you – can we just try – you know, to just do friend stuff? Make up for all of this?"

The doors start to shut, and Haruka steps forward as though he'd be able to stop them. "Okay," he says in a rush, and then the doors are closed. He watches Rin as the train pulls away, and then the glass glints and throws the light back into his eyes and Rin is out of sight.

The notification light on his phone, sitting on the living room table, is blinking when he gets home. It's a message from Rin, which isn't a surprise.

_serious, you have to message me back_ , it says, timed for just before seven, right after Haruka got off the train.

Haruka sends back an  _Okay_ , smiles as he sets the phone back down. He notices a scratching sound at his back door – the cats angry at him for missing their dinner time. Sometimes they hang around and sometimes they live elsewhere; these past few weeks they've been in his backyard more often than not. They meow fervently when he opens the door, and try to trip him up by twining around his ankles.

"It's your fault if I spill," he says, but he manages to set the two bowls down on the patio safe and sound. The cats instantly abandon him in favor of the food, and so the day ends like any other.

* * *

He wakes up the next morning and feels perfectly fine staying where he is, beneath a thick layer of blankets and staring up at the ceiling. He isn't tired and he isn't hungry either, and for once neither the bath nor the swimming pool is an irresistible tug coaxing him from the covers.

What a difference regaining Rin's friendship makes. It's like some festering thing has been drained right out of him, leaving so much room for calm, calm, calm. The crosshatching on the ceiling is hypnotizing; he has a hard time keeping his eyes in focus.

But to Rin he's no longer just a friend. Suddenly uneasy, he turns his head toward the open door, through which he is able to see the slats of the hardwood stretching away down the hall. He decides to get up, but to not change out of his pajamas. For breakfast he sticks some bread in the toaster, and as it heats he curls up his feet to keep as much of them off the flooring as possible. There is something about feet on a cold floor in the morning that is near unbearable, and yet he doesn't want to expend the effort to go back upstairs and put on socks.

He watches the heating rods in the toaster glow red, and wonders when Rin started thinking of him in the liking sense. Wonders what started it.

What started it for any of the girls who have given him Valentine's chocolates through the years, not quite confessions but close enough? Rin knows as well as anyone how unlikely Haruka is to show affection, but maybe that isn't something he wants. Maybe what Rin is interested in is purely aesthetical. Maybe. Who knows. He sure doesn't.

With a trilling chime, the toaster coughs up his toast. He munches on it, still not very hungry but knowing that any handful of people would advise him to eat first thing in the morning.

Instead of going to the pool, he goes into the back yard and waters the garden because the rain that had been looming never came. The cats show up and watch him from the patio, legs folded beneath their bodies and amber eyes trained lazily on him, only half-open. When the plants are all glistening with water droplets, Haruka joins the cats on the patio, lets them crawl onto his lap and curl up there. The sun is out but isn't very strong, so their two bodies quickly become the best source of warmth.

Rin hasn't texted him since yesterday. Haruka tries to think of something he could send, but the only thing he can come up with has to do with the weather –  _I don't know if it's warm or cold today_  – and that's really a stupid thing to say. He runs his fingers through one cat's fur – long and soft, a mottle of brown and gold – and it starts purring, which sets the other one off as well.

Maybe when they let him leave, he'll go to the pool. Or maybe he'll stop by Makoto's, or maybe he'll take a walk along the beach. Today he feels like fooling himself into believing he has time to do whatever he wants, or to do nothing at all. Whichever involves the least amount of exertion, mental or otherwise.

* * *

"I knew you two just had to talk," Makoto says later. He and Haruka sit on the stone step at the very base of the hill, facing the beach. It's low tide, so the water just kind of sits there, doesn't even make enough sound to reach them.

"Hm," Haruka says. He hadn't actually told Makoto what he and Rin spoke about, or even that the talk went well at all, but of course it had only taken Makoto one look at him to know that things hadn't gone badly.

On either side of them sits a plastic pail containing flat stones picked up along the rockier parts of the beach. Ren and Ran are at the shop nearby, buying popsicles because "You can't go to the beach and then not have popsicles," Ran had said, as though it was something every reasonable human being should know. She comes back up the road with her brother now, each of them with a popsicle in hand and bickering loudly.

Haruka doesn't know where his plan about no exertion went to. He was the one to knock on Makoto's door, though, so there's obviously some form of self-sabotage going on.

"It's so cold," Ren complains, when he and his sister make it back to the stairs. He tries to take a bite of his popsicle, but flinches every time his teeth touch the purple ice.

"That's what I told you," Makoto says resignedly. He stands and picks up a pail, and Haruka does the same.

Ran takes Haruka's elbow as they start back up the steps. "You're gonna stay and paint with us, aren't you?" she asks him. Somewhere in the past few days, she and her brother had decided they wanted to make a stone path in the backyard, but that it would be way too boring if the stones weren't painted.

"Do I get to say no?" Haruka asks.

"No," she says simply, and her pigtails bounce along as she speeds up and pulls him after her, setting the stones in the pail rattling together.

Later still, while Ren is laying down stones in the backyard, Ran comes back to the patio where Haruka and Makoto are painting and says, fists on her hips, "I thought you were supposed to be good at art, Haru-chan."

Makoto makes a valiant effort of stifling his laugh, but his cough is thoroughly unconvincing.

"Your paint brushes are hard to work with," Haruka says, which is true. He's pretty sure the one he's using had been chewed on sometime in the past – the red plastic is far from smooth, and a good portion of the bristles stand out at all angles. He thinks, secretly, that Ran gave him the worst brush on purpose – she's becoming more and more devious these days.

"It's okay," Ran says, taking a stone in each hand from the painted ones laid out on the newspaper beside Haruka. "The colors are still nice."

Haruka decides not to say anything along the lines of 'I thought you were supposed to be good at laying paving stones' because they aren't using paving stones, and the twins never said they knew what they were doing. The pathway they're creating, from just below where Makoto and Haruka sit to somewhere across the short stretch of lawn, looks more like someone's accidentally dropped a bunch of rocks all over the place.

Haruka finishes another stone – this one he's done in blue and purple stripes – and sets it on a free space on the newspaper. They're using watercolors, which makes the painting even more difficult. You have to make it like mud, Ren had said, or else the colors won't show up.

"Let's see how long this lasts," Makoto says, painting in the eye of an orange smiley face on his own stone. "The rain has to come one of these days. Here, this one's done."

He places the stone in Haruka's palm, and Haruka sets it down to dry between the green smiley face and the yellow one.

"Why was she criticizing  _my_  painting?" Haruka mutters, and Makoto grins at him.

"You're funny to annoy. She said that. I didn't." Makoto laughs about something, and in answer to Haruka's bemused frown says, "She probably has a crush on you."

Haruka thinks for a split-second of Rin, the crush that has sent everything spinning off its axis, but he's able to push all that aside and fix Makoto with a blank-faced stare.

"Don't be weird."

"In a cute way," Makoto says, still smiling.

Haruka absolutely doesn't see how it would be cute for a Makoto's younger sister to have a crush on him. Speaking of little sisters, though.

"Was Kou okay yesterday? When she caught up to you guys…"

Makoto's smile dulls a little bit, but he wastes no time trying to pull it back on. "She was okay. Just needed to fume for a little bit, I think. I rode the train to her stop with her. She was glaring at the floor the entire time." He gives a quiet laugh. "She looked a lot like Rin on one of his bad days."

"Haru-chan," says Ran, popping up once more in front of them. "Can you draw one with Iwatobi-chan on it?"

"Why do you want him on one of your rocks?" Haruka says, setting his brush down and letting his weight rest on his hands.

"I don't know," Ran says, rolling her eyes. "I just do. It'd be cool."

"I can't draw him with these brushes. They're too big."

"Haru-chan, please! I know you can. You draw him really well."

"I know."

Ran puffs out her cheeks. "Hey! You're supposed to say 'thank you,' you know."

"I know."

"Haru-cha- _aaan!_  Stop! You're so annoying!"

Haruka's lips twitch. "I know."

Ran tries to look indignant, but she starts laughing. Tries even harder to stop that, and ends up making a frustrated sound that is half-laugh half-groan. "Make him stop," she says to her brother with a stamp of her foot, but Makoto is already chuckling and this sets Haruka off as well.

"You two are so dumb," Ran says, making a show of gathering up some more stones, head ducked to keep her reluctant grin out of sight, and storming away.

* * *

When Haruka gets home, it's with two painted rocks in one hand – one is white with a blue wave on it, the other orange with a purple star – and in the other hand a container of some of the leftover curry udon Mrs. Tachibana made him take home after having him stay for lunch. When he had been leaving, Ran had come running down the hall with the stones in hand, had ducked beneath Makoto's arm to hold them out to Haruka.

"Put these in your yard somewhere," she had said, and then, with an expression of utmost determination on her face: "Haru-chan, you seem happier today. Keep feeling like that, okay?"

She had disappeared, face going red, and Makoto had raised his eyebrows at Haruka, looking amused and all-knowing. Haruka told him to stop being stupid, but had walked the thirty seconds home wondering if it really had been so obvious that he was feeling happier.

He puts the udon in the fridge, the rocks on the kitchen counter in the sunlight – he'll keep them inside until the rainy season passes, at least – and finally feels ready for a trip to the pool.

* * *

The doorbell rings late Friday afternoon, when Haruka has just gotten out of the tub, and somehow – with what feels like an electric shock in his chest that races out through all parts of him – he knows, just knows it will be Rin.

He dries off, not really rushing but still quickly. The single ring – a move that is very unlike Rin, but that doesn't fool Haruka – makes him think that maybe Rin is prepared to wait, or just doesn't want the door to be answered that quickly. His hands fumble with his clothing, his fist punches through the head hole of his shirt instead of an arm, he almost loses his balance pulling on his pants. His feet, still damp, pad loudly down the hall and stairs.

When he opens the door, Rin's arms are crossed and his mouth is twisted into something displeased, maybe worry and maybe impatience. But then his gaze falls on Haruka, and he grins. It's an expression that is both sheepish and eager.

"Hi," he says, looking windswept and sounding a bit breathless, and Haruka knows he ran up the steps, probably even jogged from the station. His hair is in a ponytail, his track jacket is zipped halfway up.

"Hi," Haruka says, adrenaline spiking through his body. Water drips from his hair down the back of his neck, dampening his shirt. He wonders if Rin is going to ask him out into the cold for a run.

Rin uncrosses his arms, and is all defenses down when he says, "I'm making up for avoiding you."

 


	7. Clusterfuck (Spring Break - part 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1-7 are edited as of 1/6/16

"I mean, it's not like I actually planned anything, but I just figured we could do whatever," Rin says quickly.

"What's whatever?" Haruka says. He releases the doorknob and moves more squarely into the doorway, but is buffeted by a front of cold air, stinging against his face and in his eyes and making him squint.

Rin hunches in against the gust, and when it's passed he says, "I don't know. Whatever you want it to be. What were you just doing?"

"Taking a bath."

Rin gives a kind-of laugh, a messy puff of breath. "Okay. What're you gonna do now?"

"I don't know," Haruka says, some of his anticipation deflating. They're both going to be disappointed if Rin expects him to come up with the plan of action. "Maybe…make dinner." He realizes he's left Rin standing outside for a while too long, and says with uncertainty, "Want to come in?"

Rin's expression softens, like an exhale, like he's been granted something he wasn't sure he'd be given. "Sure."

In the entranceway, Haruka watches Rin take off his shoes. Rin's jacket rustles, the sound crowding up to the walls, louder now than the wind muffled by the closed door. Suddenly at a loss for words, Haruka feels the silence swarming in. He has Rin here, but doesn't know what to do next, doesn't know what they could do, doesn't know what they ever used to do. When Rin straightens up, a grey sock on one foot and a black one on the other, Haruka turns abruptly and heads for the kitchen. A moment later, he hears Rin follow.

"When are you leaving?" he asks, when he's passing through the living room. He winces. "For the airport," he tries to remedy, but that hardly sounds any better.

Rin is either oblivious or pretending to be when he says, from somewhere behind Haruka, "Tomorrow morning. I'm already packed."

"Oh," Haruka says. A frisson of panic bolts up his spine, but all he can do is cross the kitchen and open the fridge, like he's on autopilot and can't find the off switch.

There's some leftover rice on the top shelf, pickled vegetables in a jar beside that, bottles of water in the door. Three more fish filets to cook, on the bottom shelf. Lots of empty space, which is nothing new but right now is a very dismal sight. The vents whir, and the fridge smell seeps slowly over his face – not foul, just some frosty scent, like winter.

"Are these new?" Rin asks. Haruka looks over his shoulder, sees Rin push off of the back wall and cross the kitchen, pointing at the stones on the counter.

"Oh. Yeah. I painted rocks yesterday. With Makoto and the twins."

Rin wrinkles his nose, picking up the one with the wave painted on it. "Why?"

"The twins wanted to."

Rin makes a quiet  _hm_  sound and sets the stone carefully back down. He works his hands into his jacket pockets and leans his hip against the counter, looking at Haruka expectantly.

"I'm actually not hungry," Haruka says, shutting the refrigerator door, feeling off-kilter and aimless.

"That's fine," Rin says. He hesitates for a moment, then says, "Wanna go for a walk? I mean – weather's not great – I've just been packing all day. Tired of being inside. If you don't want –"

"Okay," Haruka says.

Rin smiles, sheepish again, and Haruka drags some comfort out of it. He follows Rin back to the front door, watches his ponytail swing from side to side – and it's just long enough to swing now instead of just bounce. He wonders if Rin is growing his hair out, or simply hasn't gotten around to getting it cut.

They put their shoes on without a word. It feels like the entranceway has shrunk. A glance at Rin's shoes show that they're old, likely spares while his better pair is at school. The worn black fabric has gone grayish with dirt and dust, one of the shoelaces missing its plastic cap, so Rin has tied it in a knot. Haruka grabs his old Iwatobi jacket from the peg beside the door, while Rin opens the door and steps outside.

"It's getting cold," Rin says, when Haruka joins him. He's looking out over the top of Haruka's fence toward the ocean, eyes squinted a little bit and eyebrows drawn low, like he's searching for something. His jacket is zipped all the way up to his chin, but it's hardly a decent layer of protection.

Haruka makes a vague sound of agreement and closes the door behind them, the latch catching with a slight  _click_. Rin turns his head at the sound, and Haruka starts walking to get them moving, but he lets Rin decide the way they go.

There doesn't seem to be much reason to the pathways Rin chooses – the first few minutes take them down narrow roads between houses, where it feels colder because of all the shadows they have to pass beneath. The clouds overhead are getting thick, a foreboding gray that sits eerily silent and low in the sky. It's raining over the ocean already – the gemstone hues of sunset that would be on the horizon are hidden beneath black clouds. The smell of brine permeates everything, swept up by a breeze that's gaining strength fast, that dries the damp hair against Haruka's neck.

"Looks like it's gonna storm," Rin says, as they pass a doorstep filled with clay pots and a rainbow of glass vases, with a little cardboard sign nestled into the fray stating 'FREE'.

It's the second weather comment in five minutes, in what has otherwise been a void. Haruka has to save this somehow.

"Have you been to the ocean yet?" he says. "In America. You're close, aren't you?"

He spares a glance in Rin's direction, but doesn't get one in return. Nostalgia creeps into the corners of Rin's expression, and he gives his head a slight shake. "Would've been nice to go when it was warmer, but things were just too busy."

"How's swimming?" Haruka asks. They reach the end of a row of houses, and Rin takes a turn up some steps that lead higher into the mountains.

"It's good," Rin says, after taking a moment too long to answer. He meets Haruka's eyes, gives a thin-lipped smile. "I didn't make it to Nationals. It's okay though," he says quickly, but Haruka's stomach has already dropped - once, twice, wave upon wave of shock. "Really, Haru, it's fine."

Rin looks away, and Haruka helplessly watches the unhappy droop of his mouth, his lowered eyes. They take another turn, down a long, flat stretch of ground edged in by a railing on one side and the rising mountain on the other – not the same place they watched the sunrise, but nearby.

Rin takes in a breath, lets it out, and manages to piece together a melancholic smile. "Really, it's okay," he says. "We kicked ass at Regionals. We're still going to Nationals. The rest of the team will kick ass there. We're a good team, Haru." He looks at Haruka, expression insistent, like Haruka has to understand the gravity of the statement. "We're really fucking good."

But this isn't about his team, and behind the insistence is a demand for comfort, a plea for it, and Haruka knows right then that Rin has been harboring the weight of this failure silently. It's just like him, to bottle up the unbearable and make it worse, and how in the world does he expect Haruka to know how to ease that?

"Why didn't you make it?" Haruka asks, having a hard time getting the words out. He's afraid that Rin will explode, will start crying, or yelling, something to release the pressure he's let build. "What happened?"

Rin shakes his head, a motion full of disappointment. "I don't even know. I just…I thought I did good enough and I just…didn't. It was a fluke, you know how those things go." He gives a frustrated exhale. "I'll be good enough next year."  _I have to be good enough_.

"You will be," Haruka says. "There's no point beating yourself up about it now."

"Yeah," Rin says, unenthusiastic. And then, so quietly it's practically a mumble: "And I wouldn't've been able to come home if I had made it."

The first thing Haruka thinks, which he doesn't dare say because it floods him with guilt, with a wretched, poisonous feeling, is:  _I'm glad you didn't make it._  He doesn't mean it, he  _can't_ , and yet he's desperately glad Rin is here instead of across the sea.

"You told me on New Year's that you thought you'd have more time to swim," Rin says suddenly. "What did you mean?"

They leave the path, following the curve of a low wooden fence through the grass toward one of the gazebos that overlooks the bay. If Haruka looks closely, he can just make out the beam of the lighthouse out on the reef, the sky just beginning to darken enough for the light to shine.

"Makoto hasn't told you?" he says, feeling Rin's stare on the side of his face.

Rin gives a short, bitter-sounding laugh. Haruka sends him a curious glance, but he avoids it.

"No, he hasn't told me."

"I'm not going to school anymore."

Rin turns his head so fast Haruka's surprised he doesn't crick it.

"You're  _not_? What are you doing?"

Genuinely puzzled, Haruka says, "No one's told you that?"

"Haru, no one's talked to me about you. They were all kind of pissed at me." He gives a restless wave of his hands. "But what are you going to do?"

"They're angry at you?"

"They were, yeah. That doesn't matter, stop avoiding the question."

The fact that anyone other than Kou was mad at Rin is news to Haruka, and he wonders if he was just oblivious or if they were all good at hiding it.

They reach the gazebo, and Haruka stops at the foot of the steps. "I'm going to teach summer swimming lessons for a while," he says. "Maybe. I applied, at least."

Rin's eyes go wide, maybe disbelief and maybe just incomprehension. Haruka thinks that if he hadn't actually turned in the paperwork himself, he wouldn't believe it either.

"You mean with kids?" Rin asks.

Haruka nods, expecting something incredulous in response and already feeling defensive. To his surprise, Rin laughs. A warm, pleasant sound that's swept away by the breeze.

"Wow," Rin says, shaking his head. "I never would've guessed, but then again, I remember how much that kid likes you."

"Hiro. He wanted you to come to the pool again."

"Really?" Rin looks pleased. "He was a cool kid." He looks away, presses his lips together, smile fading and something pensive taking its place. Haruka can tell he has more to say, so he waits.

A gust cuts right between them and through the gazebo, making a hollow sound as it whips through the concrete-slab seats and the wooden beams. Haruka raises his eyes to the sky, his view blocked by clouds. His cheeks feel a bit like they've been rubbed with sandpaper – a little raw, a little tingly, a little numb. His nose isn't doing much better.

"What made you decide to do this?" Rin asks.

Haruka looks back at him, finds that Rin's expression has gone quiet, carefully watching. For a moment he just holds Rin's eyes, and all bumps in the road aside, this is still the same old Rin, wanting to know him, wanting to understand him. Always wanting to understand him, always claiming not to.

Haruka thinks, though, that Rin understands things he pretends not to. What Rin really wants is confirmation, because he's always hated being wrong, and not knowing if he's right. But this is what makes things so hard, because Haruka doesn't like having to form explanations. Sometimes he wishes Rin could just trust in the understanding they both know is there, instead of always asking for more. For words. For Haruka to hammer his thoughts into something complete and precise.

"I don't know," Haruka says, which is a lie. He sighs, wishes that closing his eyes would flash the right words onto the back of his eyelids. "I didn't know where to go with school. It wasn't the right thing for me. Maybe this isn't either, I don't know. I didn't really think about it, I just did it."

"Do your parents know?"

Haruka quirks a wry smile. "Yeah. They aren't too happy, but they're trying to let me make my own choices." He shrugs. Looks at the ocean, the little white crests all over the surface. "They're just worried."

"I think it's a good idea," Rin says softly. He's hardly finished before another burst of wind whips past them.

"Maybe," Haruka says, shaking his hair out of his face. "I'm just trying to figure out what to do next." A water droplet splatters onto his cheek, beneath his right eye.

"Will what's next involve swimming too?"

"Maybe," Haruka says. "I don't know." He can see, in the corner of his eye, Rin shifting his weight, getting antsy.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but shit, Haru. I don't care what you say. You're meant to do  _something_  with swimming. Maybe it's not winning medals and getting record times, but  _something_. I know you are."

"Maybe."

"Not 'maybe'! Fuck! Haru! You're a better fucking swimmer than anyone on my team! Maybe they're faster and cleaner because they train every day and they want to win competitions and you don't, but that's practice. They need practice. But you, you just swim. You're a swimmer, Haru. You can't just not do anything with that."

"But I don't love it the same way you do," Haruka says tensely. "You think of it differently than I do. You swim for different reasons than I do. Can we not talk about this, please?"

"Fine, whatever," Rin says. It isn't fine for him, and it clearly isn't a whatever. He clenches his jaw, face turned away, and Haruka wants to know why he cares so much about a future that isn't even his own.

_Because that's how much he cares about you._

He already knows this, of course, but like Rin, he can play ignorant. Having recognized it, though, he feels a nervous flutter in his chest, something kicked up by the weight of everything Rin has laid upon him. Friendship. Love. Conviction.

Investment.

Sometimes he wonders if Rin has put too much of himself into him, so much that maybe Rin isn't even aware of the extent of it. But 'too much' implies something negative, and Haruka doesn't think this is the case.

Rin makes him laugh, makes him joke, makes act downright stupid sometimes, so that Haruka will think back on things he's said or done and feel embarrassed later, yet still retain a sense of thrill. The time Rin convinced him to skinny dip in Samezuka's pool at night, one weekend when the two of them had studied all day in Rin's room and Haruka had started suffering from water withdrawal. The time Rin convinced him – to great cheers from Nagisa and Kou – to crossdress with the rest of them for the Halloween festival ( _Because if I've had to dress as a fucking maid before,_  Rin had said,  _you can too._ ) The time Rin had been over one summer day and had suddenly challenged him to a race – out the door and down to the beach, into the water and to the outcropping of rock housing the lighthouse, then back onto the sand and all the way to the end of the beach, with people staring at them the entire time.

When he's around Rin he can behave so unlike who he thinks he is, and yet being not-himself with Rin is still always genuine. A self that Rin has helped him come to realize – a self that's more light-hearted than usual, that might even be fun, sometimes.

He likes the self he is with Rin, likes the free-flow between them. He's been too serious these past months. He feels heavy.

Another droplet lands on his face, and then another. "It's raining," he says.

Rin grunts, then stalks up the two steps into the safety of the gazebo's wooden canopy. Haruka follows him to the slab in the center, but sits a safe ways away from him.

It's a good thing they make it inside when they do, because soon enough the storm is upon them, chilling the air ever further and streaking their view with gray. Water pelts against the canopy and slants its way into the gazebo, wetting the outer rim of raised concrete seats. Haruka smells the dust, the fresh scent of wet grass. He feels goose bumps along his arms and wishes he had worn a warmer jacket. He's sure Rin is cold too, but is probably too proud to show it. Like the clouds in the sky, a thick gray feeling emanates around Rin, his irritation made palpable. Haruka knows that his best bet is to just wait it out.

As quickly as the deluge comes, it passes on by, leaving a steady rainfall behind. The downpour lasted all of three minutes at most, and even though it's still raining now, it's as though sound has escaped. A hush settles in, filling the space between clouds and sea, the space between Haruka and Rin's bodies.

"Are you sure you're okay with it?" Rin asks.

"With what?" Haruka asks, working very hard to not sound cold. He doesn't look at Rin and Rin doesn't look at him.

"With me."

Oh.

Haruka looks down at his knees. Maybe this is what Rin had been intending the entire time, to drag him outside to talk. Maybe their conversation in the park hadn't been enough for him. Maybe it was too easy then.

"I'm okay with it," Haruka says.

"But?"

He wants to tell Rin to drop this, too, but there's only so much he can afford not to talk about. "It just isn't something I've thought of much. Relationship stuff."

The silence stretches out. Rin sighs. "Yeah, I know."

Haruka looks at him questioningly.

"What?" Rin says, frowning at him. "It's pretty obvious that's not where your head is. Have you ever actually liked anyone?"

"Sure. A little bit."

Rin makes a little snorting laugh, but there's no smile. "Figures," he mutters, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. "Do you always freak out when people say they like you, or is it only with me?"

 _That's not fair_ , Haruka wants to say, taken aback by the accusation in Rin's question. "I never expected it. That's why I reacted how I did."

Rin rests his forehead in his palms. It's a posture that makes him look forlorn and exhausted. "So what, you expect it when other people tell you they like you?"

"What are you trying to get at?" Haruka says, indignation flaring up.

"Should I not have told you?" Rin says, looking like he's talking more to himself or to the ground between his feet than to Haruka. "Should I have made you give me an answer? Should I just pretend like I never said anything?"

"That's stupid. You already told me. You can't pretend it didn't happen."

"I'm just trying to figure out what to do," Rin says. His voice is losing its balance, his composure slipping. "What I should have done."

"Then stop putting the blame on me."

"I'm not blaming you!" Rin turns a turbulent expression on Haruka, something regretful and frustrated and insecure all at once. "But this entire time, I could feel it, how uncomfortable you are around me. You're not – I can try to just be normal, but things aren't the same."

"Well, what did you expect?" Haruka says. He tries not to get angry. Tries not to let Rin rile him up. Everything they're feeling is fair; they've both caused this disaster. "Of course things aren't the same. You're my best friend. I never knew you felt any differently until you told me. I had no idea that was coming. And then you left me here to deal with it on my own."

Rin shakes his head quickly. "I didn't just _leave you here._ You can't blame me, either."

"I'm not," Haruka snaps. "But what kind of person confesses and then leaves right after? Especially you."

"Are you calling me a coward?" Rin snaps back.

"No," Haruka says. He hears himself scoff, and for a moment he goes frigid at the hostility in the sound. But then heat floods through him, bringing forth all the bitterness and hurt he's been letting fester. "Yes. Because you waited to tell me until right before you had to leave, so you could just run away from everything while I was stuck just trying to figure everything out."

"I didn't  _run away_. I had school!"

"You ran away from me the entire time you were back!" Haruka says, voice cracking. He isn't yelling, but there is only a very fine line to cross to get there. "The others had to abandon you just so I could talk to you!"

"How do you think I felt coming home after over two months of not hearing anything from you at all? Newsflash, Haru! I have a phone! You have a phone!"

"I was thinking!"

"Fuck your thinking!" Rin says, brandishing an arm wildly, as though to slice through the air between them. "I was thinking, too! I was thinking that I had just fucked things up forever, and you never did shit to try to make me think differently!"

Haruka is standing, doesn't even know when he got up. His arms are tense at his sides, hands fisted, like he's ready to either hit Rin or turn around and storm walk away. Rin stares up at him, daring him to do either.

"I've been trying to," Haruka says through gritted teeth. "This whole damn week, I've been trying to make you think differently."

Rin rolls his eyes, a vicious smirk stealing across his face. It's been a long time since Haruka has seen him look so mean. "Yeah, well, you were kinda late."

It's the way Rin says the words – with the undercurrent of a laugh, cold and dismissive, like he doesn't even care, like it's suddenly all a joke, that makes Haruka snap. "Why even tell me if you were just going to avoid me afterwards?!" he yells, the words coming out hoarse.

"Because I was scared!" Rin yells back. "I was too scared to tell you so I waited until the last minute, and then you said nothing and I had over two months to think about it and get even more scared!" He bows his head, yells at his knees. "I was scared, I'm still scared, what the fuck do you want me to say?!"

And Haruka realizes that he doesn't know. Neither of them know what to say, because the blame can't be pegged on either of them. He looks away, blood still pounding in his heart, beneath his ears, in his throat. "Nothing. I don't know. Sorry."

Rin lets out a loud, long breath. "It's fine," he says bitterly.

The sky has gone black. The rain has stopped and the clouds have cleared, leaving nighttime stars up above. Water falls out of tree branches onto the grass, a steady pitter-patter off in the dark, beyond the ring of lights shining around the perimeter of the gazebo.

"What were you scared of?" Haruka says, once he's sure he can speak evenly again.

"Wow, I don't know," Rin says, sarcastic and harsh. "That you'd react the exact way you reacted? That you wouldn't like me back? That you would hate me? That you'd be disgusted?"

"Why would I be disgusted?" Haruka says. Rin gives him a look that says,  _Stop being a shithead, you know exactly what I'm talking about._

"That's stupid," Haruka says. "It's none of my business who people like. I don't care if you like guys or girls. It doesn't matter."

Rin lets out a lost sound. "Then why didn't you just say something?"

"I thought it was something we had to talk about in person," Haruka says, but it sounds like such a pathetic excuse now. He can see that Rin feels as tired as he does. An emotional sapping of their strength, and soon their pulses will have slowed enough for the feeling of cold to seep back in.

"Two months, Haru," Rin says. His voice is going raspy, and whether it's from the shouting or the cold, Haruka doesn't know for sure. "Don't you get it? It was your turn to say something, and for two  _months_  you didn't say anything."

"I'm sorry." It's all he can think of to say. He feels helpless and stupid and selfish. And angry. Still angry, and yet too tired to be angry.

"If it bothered you so much, knowing I like you, how did you deal with it?"

"I tried not to think about you." He sees the hurt flit across Rin's face and feels even more awful. "I didn't mean –"

"Hah! Great! I was thinking every single day of ways I could try to fix things and you were just not thinking of anything at all. So fucking typical."

"I'm sorry! I didn't know how to deal with it! What do you want me to say?"

Rin drops his head, grips his hair. "I don't fucking know, okay?" He lets out a long, closed mouthed groan, like something one would make into a pillow in frustration. "I don't know either."

Haruka throws himself down next to Rin, tensing at the sudden proximity but forcing himself not to flinch away. His fingers curl around the edge of the seat, against the rough grains of concrete. "I'm sorry," he says. "For everything I did that hurt you. I didn't – I didn't want to do that."

"I know," Rin says. "I'm sorry, too. For being an ass this past week."

It had been an icy rain; Haruka's muscles tense, preparing to shiver. He'd like to get back inside to the warmth, but he knows he can't leave now. Despite the dampness all around, he hears a cricket start up in the underbrush somewhere.

"It is your business now," Rin says after a while, voice very small. "Who I like."

"I know," Haruka says. He casts Rin a glance, finds Rin with his elbows back on his knees, his posture heavy and his expression gloomy.

"So what is it, then?" Rin says. "If it isn't disgusting, what is it? Because it bothers you."

Haruka looks out toward the ocean. The searchlight sweeps over the water's surface, and for a moment Haruka feels very much like the lighthouse, trying to sweep up an answer in the darkness of his mind.

"Confusing," is what he settles on. Rin doesn't say anything. "I don't understand it."

"Don't understand what?"

"Why you like me."

Rin snorts. "Well, fuck, I don't either. It's not like I just sat down one day and decided because of X-Y-Z I'd just start liking you. Shit, if I had a choice, I'd choose anyone  _but_  you." He catches Haruka's eye, the wordless question Haruka is throwing him. "You're the biggest pain in the ass to like ever, in case you haven't figured that out yet."

Haruka gives a small smile. "Sorry. I've just never –"

"Thought of these things, yeah, you already said so. God, why can't you just be normal?"

Haruka shrugs. "I'm trying?" he says, but his attempt at humor falls flat.

Rin sighs. Rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"I'm not asking you to feel different," Haruka says, looking down at his hands in his lap. "I'm just asking you to stop avoiding me. I want you around so I can get used to it."

It takes a long time, but finally Rin says, "So, you think I have a chance?"

Haruka knows it's mostly a joke – there's a breathy quality to Rin's voice, like he's trying to laugh but just doesn't have it in him. But there is also a seriousness at the core of the question that Haruka cannot pretend to overlook. A self-depreciating hopefulness that makes Haruka's stomach twist regretfully.

"Don't say stupid things," he says. It's neither a _yes_ or _no_ , because he can't give either honestly. He really doesn't know what's going to become of them, only that any kind of future without Rin is a future he knows would make him miserable.

"Yeah," Rin says quietly. "I'll try not to."

If Haruka were the hugging type, he would hug Rin. It's the type of comfort Rin needs – the affection Haruka can't find in himself to give, because of fear or just an ingrained sense of self that rejects the very notion. He feels so broken by the despondency in Rin's voice that for a second he almost throws that ingrained self out the window and hugs Rin anyway, but then he thinks that it may not be appropriate with everything else that's on the table, might give the wrong impression, so he stays still.

All he can think is that Rin is leaving tomorrow, and he isn't ready for another goodbye so soon. Doesn't know if they can afford one.  _Stay longer,_  Haruka wants to say.  _Just stay a little bit longer._

"Are you hungry?" he asks, when the silence has left him feeling like he's going to either snap or somehow just fade away into nothingness. He turns his head slightly, holds his breath hopefully.

He feels a burst of elation when Rin smiles at him – a smile that is small and drained, yet so genuinely tinged with warmth that Haruka wants to glue it there permanently.

"I'm fucking starving," Rin says, and together they get up and slosh through the wet grass back to Haruka's house.

* * *

"When's your flight?" Haruka asks over dinner. They sit on opposite sides of the table, and for once Rin hasn't filed a single complaint against the mackerel. He devours it like he's starving – two filets are clearly not going to be enough.

"Ten," Rin says through a full mouth. "But I gotta get there a lot early 'cause it's an international flight."

"You should stay tonight," Haruka says. He's been debating about whether or not to say it for the past half hour, worried about the implications it might hold, but he's finally decided: screw it and screw implications. He just doesn't want Rin to go home yet. "It's late. The trains aren't coming as often. And it's cold."

Rin pauses, chopsticks reaching for the last piece of fish on his plate. "I have to get up early," he says.

"It's fine. Stay."

Rin quirks a lopsided smile. "Thanks. Are you gonna –"

Haruka is already pushing his plate across the table, and Rin digs in eagerly.

* * *

After they eat (after Rin eats the majority of Haruka's dinner, which is fine, Haruka thinks, feeling something affectionate and protective), Rin washes the dishes and Haruka dries them. Outside the window the wind howls – no longer promising rain but not promising warm weather either.

Once they've cleaned up, they push the table back to the wall in the living room and sit down against it. Rin flips on the TV, falling into a rhythm they're used to – hanging around and doing nothing productive, using the TV for background noise.

"What did you do to your fingers?" Haruka asks, noticing the dark purple splotches on Rin's fingernails as Rin sets the remote back down.

Rin looks at his hands, makes a  _tsk_  sound. "Gou did it," he says. He shows Haruka one of his hands, tells Haruka that Kou forced him to let her and her friends paint his nails –  _coerced_  him into it, he says. As a way to 'make it up to her' – and Rin's never been good at resisting guilt trips. "They were all so fucking giggly, I wanted to die," he says mournfully. "I thought I  _was_  gonna die, that stuff smells like poison."

It's obvious that Rin has tried to pick the polish off, but he hasn't made much progress. It looks a bit like he's slammed all his fingernails in a door and the blood is pooling a deep shade of plum beneath them, except Haruka can see the jagged edges where some of the paint has chipped off.

"Can't you take it off with something?" Haruka asks.

"She hid the remover stuff from me."

"There are probably other ways to get it off," Haruka says. "Really. You should look it up."

Rin takes out his phone; his pitifully-painted thumbs move over the keypad. "It's not fucking funny," he grumbles, sensing Haruka's growing smile without having to look at it.

"I didn't say it was."

Rin huffs, staring intently down at his phone. Highly amused, Haruka leans over so he can read what's on the screen, and his shoulder bumps into Rin's. They both go rigid, and Rin's thumb freezes on his phone for a second, before he continues to scroll through the web page he's found. Haruka doesn't move away, but his mouth is suddenly full of saliva, and he fights the urge to swallow, knowing it would probably be audible.

"Hairspray?" Rin says after a moment, sounding flabbergasted. "What the hell? How would that work? Do you just spray in on your nails?"

"I don't have hairspray."

"It also says perfume. Cologne. Haru, you don't wear cologne, right?"

"Yeah." He doesn't say that he does own one. He got it as a gift years ago and lost it in the house somewhere, which doesn't do much for them now.

He knows Rin wears cologne sometimes. Never when he's going to work out or swim, but sometimes when all of them get together to hang out he's wearing it. Always the same one, always very light. Fresh-smelling. There isn't really anything natural about the scent, no way Haruka can say that it smells like this thing or that thing, but it isn't too bad. It makes Haruka think of really soft blue. Ocean spray, maybe, if oceans smelled like pleasantly-scented chemicals.

Though Haruka doesn't know why Rin would bother smelling nice when it's just the guys, and there's nobody to impress –

Oh.

He swallows. Wonders if Rin's shoulder is very, very hot, or if he's just getting flustered.

"Oranges," Rin says. "Or other citrus fruits. You have any of those?"

"I have some oranges. They might be kind of old."

Rin shrugs, jostling Haruka only slightly. "Still worth a try. D'you have vinegar?"

"I think so," Haruka says. He gets to his feet, and when he's out of sight in the kitchen he rubs at his shoulder, which still feels hot. It's almost like the feeling he gets when he's had his goggles around his head for so long that even when they're off, he finds himself reaching to adjust them. His body remembering ghost feelings, ghost weights.

He finds two slightly-deflated oranges in the otherwise empty fruit bowl in the corner of the kitchen, brings them back to the living room along with a cutting board and a knife. He leaves Rin cutting the oranges so he can dig through his cupboards for vinegar. He finds the bottle mostly full and covered in a thin layer of dust, which he wipes off on his shirt as he reenters the living room.

"Do you need anything else?" he says, handing the bottle to Rin.

"It says cotton balls," Rin says, squeezing an orange half to a pulp to get what dregs of juice it contains into the bowl.

Haruka doesn't think he has cotton balls, so he returns from the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper. He sets it next to the bowl, then sits across from Rin, who examines the bottle of vinegar as though it's under interrogation.

"What's wrong?" Haruka asks.

"It just says  _some_  vinegar."

Haruka peers into the bowl, the bottom of which is coated with a very thin layer of juice, pulp, and seeds. He's about to tell Rin they probably don't need too much, but Rin shrugs and pours in a generous amount, probably several tablespoons.

"Maybe more will make it work better," is Rin's explanation, picking up the bowl to swirl the mixture together. Haruka looks at his purple fingernails and thinks,  _Okay, maybe, I hope._

Rin rips a few sections of toilet paper off the roll, folds them into a square and dips it into the orange juice. He pulls a face, but starts rubbing the soggy toilet paper against his thumbnail. "This is really gross."

"Don't complain."

" _Don't complain,_ " Rin mimics under his breath. He quickly grows bemused, then frustrated. "This – isn't – working," he growls, rubbing at his nail frantically, ripping the toilet paper. "Haru, this toilet paper's crap."

"You need to be more patient," Haruka says. Without thinking, he grabs Rin's wrist and takes the wad of toilet paper out of his hand. He doesn't let himself flinch at the contact, though his mind starts running about a mile a minute with warnings and admonishments and some faint background scream of horror.

The self-consciousness is going to drive him crazy; he can't stop thinking about how each action might look, how everything  _means_  something now. He doesn't feel in control of anything he does, but he feels the need to pretend, so he stubbornly takes hold of Rin's thumb and starts rubbing at the nail polish in steady circles. The rest of Rin's fingers rest warmly against the back of his hand, and he has an expanding-contracting feeling going on in his chest – he doesn't think he's ever felt more nervous in his life. Rin seems to have lost the ability to speak, which is fine, Haruka tries to tell himself consolingly. This is all very fine.

Rin has a hangnail above his cuticle and a scab near his first knuckle. His hands are slightly sticky from the orange juice, and they smell like oranges, too – Haruka can make out this scent beneath the more pungent smell of the mixture he's rubbing onto Rin's nail. Rin's arm is prickly with stubble, the hair growing back because he probably hasn't swam in a little while with his wallowing and all. Haruka tries to keep his mind busy with thoughts like these – relatively innocuous things that he can observe objectively.

"It worked," he says after what may have been one minute and may have been five, once Rin's nail is clean and the toilet paper is smeared purple and he's worried that the heat of Rin's hand is going to literally burn through his skin.

"Hm," Rin says.

Haruka risks a glance at Rin, and finds Rin's eyes lowered and his face burning much more than his hand is. Haruka wills his own face not to heat up, and takes hold of Rin's index finger. He's determined to remove the polish from all of Rin's nails; it's a trial he needs to go through to show Rin that it's okay, he's not going to run away from every little bit of contact so Rin doesn't have to either. And then one day they'll be able to laugh about this.  _Remember that time you had to get that nail polish off my hands with that disgusting orange mix stuff?_ Rin will say, laughing, sometime in the future when the feeling of Rin's hand doesn't make Haruka want to perpetually jump out of his skin.

"She really forced you to let her do this?" Haruka says. The back of his neck is hot; if he was still wearing his jacket he'd take it off. He's irrationally afraid that he's going to accidentally snap one of Rin's fingers, the bones feel so small.

"Don't underestimate sisters," Rin mumbles.

Silence again. Haruka wracks his brain for something to follow up with.

"What are you studying?"

"At school?"

"Yeah."

"Dunno yet. Haven't decided. Maybe English."

Haruka switches to the ring finger, which only has a tiny chip of paint left on it that disintegrates quickly. "What's the school like?" he asks. "What's the town like?"

"The school's really nice," Rin says, curling up the rest of his hand as he holds his pinky out for Haruka to work on. Slowly but surely, his voice becomes its old animated self. "They have special lanes for bikes, like little roads all over the campus. Makes me wanna get a bike just so I can use them."

Haruka sets the used wad of toilet paper aside, folds up some fresh and dips it into the mixture. He takes Rin's hand more easily this time, and is relieved when Rin just keeps on talking, fingers staying relaxed.

"The town's nice too," Rin is saying. "There's a shopping center a few blocks away, and a little bit farther are all the restaurants. Haru, the  _food_. You can find everything you've ever wanted to eat. There's this restaurant, maybe two blocks away from campus. It's all seafood. It's expensive, so you can't go too often, and when I went they didn't have mackerel, but still. I know you'd like it. They make you feel all high class in there. They even cook the carrots with the stems still on."

Haruka chuckles. "That sounds very fancy."

"You have to dress up to get in."

"What did you go for?"

"Went with the team after Regionals." Rin holds out his other hand. "Kind of a celebration, but…"

"You'll make it next year," Haruka says, taking Rin's hand and starting again with his thumb.

Rin makes a  _psh_  sound. "I already know that."

Haruka smiles but says nothing. He finds himself left once more in silence, but it's easier to bear now, the tension defused. Rin's fingers bump and brush against his as he works, but instead of sending a spiky feeling through his body every time, the contact is starting to be soothing. It's surprising how well the concoction works, taking a bit of time but still dissolving the polish off of Rin's nails. Probably the acidity. Hopefully the scent isn't going to be something that seeps into his skin and refuses to wash away. He gives Rin another glance when he's almost finished, and this time he finds Rin with his chin ducked, eyes shut.

"Are you tired?"

The corners of Rin's mouth lift. "Kinda."

"Want to sleep in here?"

"Whatever."

"Want to sleep now?"

Rin cracks open his eyes, looks at their hands. He says a bit petulantly, "You're not done yet."

* * *

They end up in Haruka's bedroom, Rin flopped face-first on the bed, Haruka sitting on the edge and not feeling very tired at all. The wind has died down slightly, but still billows around the corners of the house.

"If you have stuff to do," Rin says, looking at Haruka with one eye, the other side of his face buried in the pillow, "you can just leave me here. I'm seriously gonna be out in a minute."

"You can change into some of my things to sleep in," Haruka says.

"You still have Loosejaw-kun?" Rin mumbles, eye already shut. He works his arms beneath the pillow, wiggles a bit to get more comfortable.

The warm glow of protectiveness flares up again in Haruka's chest. "Yeah. You can wear whatever."

He stands, planning to just watch TV downstairs until he gets tired because he doesn't want to keep Rin awake, but Rin calls his name before he can take more than a few steps.

Rin has turned onto his side, his hair already mussed up all over the pillow. "I'm leaving really early," he says, "and I don't wanna wake you up when I go, and I probably won't wake up when you come to bed, so…"

So then goodbye. It's not even the right time for it – not like Rin's going to up and leave this second – but Haruka already feels the comfort and familiarity of the last half hour slipping away from him. If he leaves the room now, he might not speak to Rin again in person until summer.

"Okay, yeah," Haruka says.

"So bye," Rin says, not looking too happy himself.

Haruka nods.

"Thanks, you know," Rin says. He yawns, the bridge of his nose wrinkling, his eyes squeezing shut. When he opens them again they've gone watery, and his voice is sleep-heavy. "You know."

Haruka nods again. "I know. Put something else on before you go to sleep." He leaves the room, but leaves the light on so Rin will get up and change.

He can't sit still in front of the TV, so he gets up and cleans the kitchen, even though it's already clean. He takes all the rarely-used bottles of condiments out of the cupboard and wipes the dust off of them, then rearranges them and closes them back in the dark. He wipes down the counters. Sweeps the spotless floor. Opens the fridge and stares at its barren innards, and starts a shopping list on the rarely-used notepad he keeps in one of the drawers.

Mackerel. Oranges. But oranges aren't in season; these past few weren't good anyway. Vegetable. Of some kind. Cat food. He goes out to see if the cats have come around, but they've been absent all day and still are, probably hankered down in some dry spot.

Before he knows it he's back in the living room, trying to work on his list with the TV blending into one persistent drone in the background. But nothing appears after 'cat food' – he just stares at the characters, traces over them, his back slowly going sore against the table. Before he knows it again, he's tapping his pen against his knee, staring into a corner of the room and thinking about nothing at all. And then he starts thinking that Rin is leaving, and he slides all the way down onto the floor, spine bumping against the edge of the table as he goes. He props the notepad atop his face, but this blocks out only a little bit of the light, and nothing of his thoughts.

* * *

When he lies in bed next to Rin, he feels equal parts longing and unease. Longing for Rin to stay and unease about Rin going. Longing to not feel unease. Unease about going to sleep next to Rin, under the blankets with Rin, Rin who likes him, who finds him attractive, maybe, who is less than a foot away, unease about being so vulnerable? Maybe. Longing for Rin. And if that isn't a packed thought, he doesn't know what is.

He doesn't want to sleep, but every time he thinks this his eyes start to fall shut, the warmth of the blankets burrowing into every part of him and pulling him into a much-needed state of oblivion. But every time he's almost asleep he feels Rin's presence like it's suddenly all around him, and his eyes snap open again, to the gradients of darkness and glossy silver that shade the room.

Rin sleeps so quietly that the only sign of his breathing is the subtle lift and fall of his arms, crossed over his stomach atop the blankets. Haruka watches his face for a little while; what he can see best is the tip of Rin's nose – like the moon and stars have concentrated themselves into a beam aimed specifically there. But there are also relaxed eyebrows, relaxed lips, relaxed everything, Rin's face gone neutral.

Haruka remembers the night before Rin left half a year ago, when they had been lying together on top of the covers and he had felt  _something_  while looking at Rin – some kind of shift already in motion, something either very fragile or very sturdy, or somehow both. He wonders if Rin already liked him back then. He must have.

Looking at Rin right now, this Rin who is still, whose breath barely disturbs the air, it isn't that scary of a thought.

Spiraling once more into sleep, Haruka wonders, more and more convolutedly, what Rin sees in him. Why does Rin, larger-than-life Rin, like him?

And what were all the signs he'd missed?

And what is it that actually scares him – Rin liking him, or just knowing about it? Because right now he's torn between wanting Rin to be closer – close enough for their knees to touch, like they had two months ago on top of the covers when Rin liked him but Haruka didn't know yet – and wanting the bed to be larger so he can roll farther away, from change and decisions and life dragging him along behind it.

* * *

He's woken by a muffled clattering sound, and thinks at first that he imagined it. Sleep still hangs heavily around him, is ready to pull him right back under, but then he hears Rin mutter a curse, and sleep dissipates a little more.

He rolls over, opens his eyes to darkness and a blurry pinpoint of light near the door. He blinks, and the blur sharpens, becomes the illuminated screen of Rin's cell phone. He can make out Rin standing half-hunched over, watching him intently, like a cat that isn't sure if it's been caught doing something it shouldn't. And Haruka realizes that this is Rin trying to leave quietly, and failing to a stupendous degree.

"What was that?" Haruka croaks.

Rin straightens up. His face is lit from beneath, casting shadows like inky pools all over, but his embarrassed smile is still visible. "Dropped my phone. Sorry."

Haruka sits up. The chill has seeped through the walls. He pulls the blankets up over his shoulders, can't manage to keep his eyes more than a sliver open.

"Are you going right now?" he asks.

"Yeah."

Haruka swings his legs out of bed, dumping a lot of the blankets on the floor in the process. He extricates himself from them, then on second thought snatches up the comforter and wraps it around himself. "I'll walk you to the door," he says.

Rin may or may not look surprised – Haruka is still too tired to really tell – but he says, "Okay."

Haruka follows Rin down the hall, then then stairs and to the front door, blanket dragging along behind him, a whispery  _swish_  of sound. He stands in a stupor while Rin gets his shoes on, and is almost indignantly startled by the cold air that comes wafting in when Rin opens the door. He pulls the blanket tighter, eyes smarting from the cold, and Rin steps out into the yellow glow of the porch light.

"So, I'll see you in a couple months," Rin says, hair sleep-tussled and eyes sporting a droopy look that says he doesn't feel as awake as he pretends to be.

"Okay," Haruka says. He leans into the door frame, toes scrunching up because he hasn't donned slippers or socks. He feels no hurry from either of them – Rin pulls his hood up over his head, crosses his arms, stands there looking tired but otherwise quite relaxed and orange-tinted. Haruka makes no move to go further inside, is weighing the pros and cons of resting his head against the door frame. The porch light gives a false impression of warmth, and though his face is cold, the comforter traps heat around him everywhere else besides his toes.

"Message me about how the job goes," Rin says.

"Okay."

"Go back to sleep."

Haruka cracks a smile. "I will."

Rin is trying to withhold a smile of his own, but his eyes are alight with it.

"Thanks for taking that purple shit off my nails."

"Yeah."

Rin takes a deep breath, lets it out, and blurts, "Can I kiss you?"

Haruka feels himself wake up like a switch has been flicked inside of him – he might even hear the  _click_  that precedes all thought function whirring to a start.

"I mean –" Rin starts panicking, hands up, eyes wide. "I mean no. I mean stop. Don't – don't listen to me. I don't know what – I didn't mean –"

"Okay," Haruka blurts out, because 'okay' is an easy word to say, the easiest, a place-filler, a stopper for Rin's babbling.

"Wha – wait, what?" Rin stammers.

Haruka asks himself the same thing. What did he just okay? Is Rin going to kiss him now? Should he close the door?

But Rin just shakes his head vehemently, backs up a few steps. "No, I wasn't – I shouldn't have even said it. I'm an idiot. Just – just forget it, okay?"

"Okay," Haruka says, realizing that he's being anything but helpful, but both his mind and body feel like they've been sucked into a mud pit.

Rin has stopped stammering. He stares at Haruka for a long moment, looking dismayed. Then he bolts forward and kisses him.

There might be a touch of lips, but Haruka doesn't register that bit because it's vastly overshadowed by Rin's nose hitting his, hard. He jerks back, eyes smarting now from the pain instead of the cold, and clutches his nose as Rin dissolves into something near hysterics.

"Fuck. Fuck!" Rin grabs his head, turns completely around so that all Haruka can see is his back and his knuckles in his hair. "I'm so fucking stupid! Shit!"

"People are still asleep," Haruka says numbly.

Quieter now, but still sounding horrified, Rin crouches down and says, "I'm the biggest idiot in the world."

The more Haruka thinks about it – the four-ish seconds when he stares at Rin on the ground and tries to catch up to the present – the more he thinks that Rin didn't kiss him at all, that Rin just fully-intentionally head-butted him in the face.

He crouches down beside Rin, the comforter pooling around him, and says, "Stop being stupid." Which, again, isn't exactly helpful and probably isn't what he wanted to say.

Rin's face is buried in his hands, his ears a deep red – the blush so dark it's visible even in the yellow light. "Haru, I literally don't know how to stop being stupid," he says miserably.

"I said okay," Haruka says, though he's really just grasping for straws. He hadn't actually said Rin could kiss him, but he hadn't actually said he couldn't. He hadn't been thinking of either answer, as far as he can remember.

"But  _why_? Why'd you say it?"

Haruka doesn't know. He decides it's probably best not to tell Rin that he didn't particularly feel anything from the kiss, besides the now-dull throb in his nose. But he doesn't feel upset or betrayed or anything else especially negative. The last several minutes have been too big of a train wreck for anything like that.

"You're not going to kill me?" Rin asks, peeking at him.

"Stop being – no, I'm not. Rin, just stand up," Haruka says, starting to feel low on battery, the short sleep he had not enough to keep him running. He takes Rin's arm and pulls him to his feet, then tugs the comforter back tight around himself. "I'm not angry at you. You can't do it again, but I'm not angry."

Rin gives a nervous laugh, but as soon as it's fizzled away his eyes are wide and worried again. "Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Shit, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Haruka says.

"Okay." Rin nods. Then shakes his head. "Haru, really, if you ever just need to hit me or something –"

" _Rin._ "

"Sorry, sorry," Rin says hastily. He looks down at the ground, posture sagging, mouth a steep downward curve. He lets out a breath, a disheartening sound. Looks back at Haruka, swallows. "I need to go."

Haruka nods. "Have a good flight," he says. Then, the words coming to him in a rare moment of clarity: "Message me when you land." He gives an exhausted inward cheer; he'd be so much more proud of himself if a leaden weight wasn't settling inside of him.

Rin only gives a small smile, one that flickers to life and back out just as quickly, but it's enough. "I will," he says. And then, with a reluctant sense of finality, he says, "See you later, Haru."

Haruka watches him head away, and he's already regretting everything he might have done wrong when they were together, everything he might have been able to express better, all the things he might have been able to say if he'd tried harder.

And then Rin turns down the stairs and out of sight, and Haruka shuts the door. Tired everywhere, a sore in his chest he knows will only get worse if he tries to manage it now, he vows to think things through in the morning – the real morning. He goes back up to his room, where he sees his clothes that Rin wore to bed folded neatly on top of the desk. He kicks the blankets on the floor back onto the bed and then, the comforter still hugged around himself, he tumbles onto the mattress and back into sleep, with one last thought that at the very end of it all, he and Rin are at least a better-functioning disaster than they were a week ago.


	8. Lull (Spring - part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [copy-pastes notes from ffn bc i'm lazy and hungry and tired]
> 
> I honestly wanted to have this done and updated a couple weeks ago, but let's just say life kept throwing things at me. But this chapter ended up longer than I anticipated, so there's a bit of a consolation? I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the feedback for last chapter, it was extremely kind and still makes me feel warm and fuzzy thinking about it. Also, group huddle of secondhand embarrassment for Rin - I felt it too while writing it. 
> 
> I started this fic back when I only has S1 to work off of and I wanted to address the big question of 'The Future', and I just have to say it's been so fun (and painful) and exciting watching Eternal Summer start addressing the question of 'future' more and more as the season has progressed. Especially as I was writing this chapter and watching the past few episodes come out, I've been feeling like my fic is almost like an alternate universe of ES set a couple years in the future, or like a possible outcome of ES in a surreal almost but not quite kind of way. It's been trippy, basically xD. And lots of fun seeing how some parts of my fic can still be considered canon, and also very fun trying to tie in certain parts of ES that fit in with my overall plot. Bottom line, I'm still having tons of fun writing this fic even though it takes me eons to update! (Speaking of ES, I haven't even had time to watch today's episode, I'll have to do it tomorrow before work!)

The sun is out when he wakes up again, and a light rain patters against the sides of the house. He's tangled in the blanket, but his feet stick out and are growing ever colder, which is probably what woke him. He works himself out of the blankets and out of bed, pads barefoot to the kitchen and makes himself two slices of toast. It's nearly all he has left to eat.

The bread dries out his mouth. He washes it down with water, chewing mechanically and staring out the window at the skyline – more of the same washed out, grayish blue. Soon enough he's out the door, swimming bag slung over his shoulder and umbrella in hand, equipped for the shower that will be coming.

The train ride feels bumpier than usual, and it's with one particularly strong jolt that he remembers, suddenly, the previous night. Rin on his porch in the cold and the yellowy light. But the more he thinks, the more the thoughts just slip in and out of focus, like he can't muster the concentration to dwell on any one thing. Like the train jostles them right out of his mind. He remembers in snatches – things like nail polish and deflated oranges and Rin's shining nose and the headbutt – and then feels too tired to keep the snatches there.

He lifts his gaze from his knees to the opposite bench, which is as empty as the rest of his compartment, typical for a Saturday morning. He casts a quick glance around anyway, to make sure no one is there to witness him thinking about the things he is. Rin's smile is what he remembers the clearest – a tentatively hopeful expression, and he doesn't know when it's from, before the not-kiss or after, but either way it feels too private to be thought of in the vicinity of others.

Then again, he's relaxed enough to break into a long, eye-watering yawn, so maybe he isn't as anxious as he thinks he is. Maybe there's nothing really to fret over.

The sun is pale and the train windows are watery from the drizzle. The droplets have time to swell thicker and rounder when the train is at rest, and are blown thin when the train moves. Rin is in the sky somewhere, up above the clouds, and Haruka won't be seeing him again for a couple of months. And it's not like anything that's happened between them can change, and there's no point worrying about what else might happen before the future even arrives.

_Whatever_ , he thinks, leaning back against his seat and crossing his arms, eyes shutting with a grateful sting – how much sleep did he get, anyway? He pulls up his hood to cushion his head against the bumps, and feels himself unwind, the flashes of last night slowing and then turning into the blissful darkness of a mind at ease. If there's one thing tiredness is good for, it's for putting things into perspective. What's worth worrying about, and what isn't.

He's done fighting, done stagnating over whatever's happening between him and Rin. What will come will come, and he'll deal with it then. And maybe now he'll be able to grow.

* * *

By the end of the day the fridge is restocked, and he's made enough mackerel fried rice that he doesn't have to cook at least one meal tomorrow. It's plain mackerel for dinner, and then he's sitting inside but with the door to the yard open wide, so he can smell the rain and feel the chill on his face and hear that pattering like it's all up and down the hallway. For a while he just sits on the floor and stares out at the night sky and the faint streaks of rain he can see lit by the backyard lights. The air smells so clean that it feels like he can breathe more of it into his lungs than usual. He wonders if Rin has landed yet; he doesn't even know how long those flights can be, doesn't know how many connections Rin has to make, or if he's searched out direct flights far in advance.

He takes his phone to bed with him and stares at where he knows it is in the dark beside his pillow with a sense of jittery foreboding. When will ut light up and what it will have to say to him when it does?

His sleep is one unbroken stretch of unconsciousness, not even interrupted by dreams. Sure enough, the notification light is blinking when he wakes up. His room is dusky enough that he knows the sun is still rising. The message is timed for just past six in the morning – almost an hour ago.

He has to read the message several times before any of it starts to sink in, and even when he has the words, the meaning spins right out of his head. It's with an enormous amount of concentration that he finally makes sense of the nonsense Rin has greeted him with:

_so since i'm technically living saturday twice does that mean i'm adding days to my life?_

Haruka lets out a sleepy snort, turning his face into the pillow. Part of him would really like to sink back into sleep; the covers are the perfect warmth that one can only wake up to but never manage to achieve when first getting into bed. And it's silent, no rain outside, creating a stillness that settles like another layer of bedding.

But he dredges up the energy to sit up and shake the hair out of his face. He tries to blink the bleariness from his eyes but has little success, so instead he types, with lots of mistakes and lots of deleting,  _I don't think it has anything to do with adding days to your life._

He takes the phone with him when he goes to wash his face, takes it with him to the kitchen, sets it on the counter when he cooks up a fresh mackerel. He slept so deeply that he can hardly dispel the sleep that still hangs around him – he can't stop yawning, and each one pops his eardrums a little bit. He flips the fish over, stares with unfocused eyes at the charred and bubbled skin, feels his stomach growl. If he lets himself zone out enough, he can hear the blood rushing past his ears.

His phone buzzes, and his vision snaps back into focus. He shuts off the heat, picks up his phone.

_but i literally am spending more than 24 hours in the same day. so like when the year's over did i spend more hours in the year than you did?_

Haruka blinks, once, hard, but the message is still the same when he opens his eyes.  _What?_ is all he can think, over and over again as he serves up his breakfast and takes it to the living room.

_I don't know. Did you?_ he sends once he's seated. The reply comes before he can even pick up his chopsticks. It's overwhelming how awake Rin is when Haruka kind of wants to lie right down on the floor.

_i don't know, that's why i'm asking you_

Haruka heaves a sigh, and his stomach gives a loud rumble.

_I don't know._

Haruka takes the resulting silence as an opportunity to start on his breakfast. He's half finished when a reply finally comes, making the phone rattle against the tabletop.

_rei probably knows_

Before Haruka can set his chopsticks down to type back  _Probably,_ Rin asks him,  _did i wake you up?_

_No,_  Haruka sends, wondering if the rushed, anxious way he hears Rin's words are just something his mind has created. He can hardly put his phone down before he gets a response.

_ok, good_

He smiles, feeling for a moment like Rin spoke to him from just across the table, in a tumble of words and a stubbornly averted gaze. And then, in typical Rin fashion, Rin hides his embarrassment by saying:  _i just got back to the dorm, so i'm gonna finish unpacking._

_Ok_ , Haruka sends.

Slowly, easily, the smile slips off of his face, and without his phone buzzing every second the clink of his chopsticks against his plate is the loudest thing in the house. The distance becomes a palpable thing once more, the fact that it's just a hunk of plastic-coated electronic connecting him to Rin, and that he doesn't know how long it will be quiet for. But that conversation had been a success, a good first, and when he brings his plate to the sink, it's with the satisfied thought of:  _Well, that was that._

* * *

On Tuesday, the last day of March, he gets a call asking him to come in for an interview the following afternoon. He doesn't tell Makoto, because Makoto would probably have him rehearse answers to common interview questions, which Haruka thinks is really stupid and would make him a lot more nervous than necessary.

The interview room is small and very white and Haruka feels like all his answers and even the questions themselves are being sucked into the colorlessness, but he obviously says some things right, because at the end of it all the woman interviewing him asks him to come back tomorrow for a swimming trial.

He doesn't tell Makoto about this, either, because he knows Makoto would say something along the lines of 'I don't think you can tell them you only swim free this time.'

And so late afternoon on Thursday, a relatively clear day, but with a breeze that seems to come from and go to nowhere, he troops out of the men's locker room with two others – a Shimamura and an Amano, who have been called back for the trial as well.

Shimamura is the shortest of the three of them, with light brown hair growing in darker at the roots. He's the youngest, also, just started college a few days ago, and his backpack had sounded like it was filled with bricks when he'd set it down on the bench in the locker room. He bounces when he walks with them toward the pool, like he has too much energy pent up. His arms are crossed, fingers drumming against his biceps.

The only thing Haruka's heard Amano say so far has been his name – "Amano," in a low, quiet voice, when Shimamura had asked in the locker room. He has long hair, tied up now with many rubber bands – just rubber, none of those hair ties most people use – and a perpetual distant expression on his face. His gaze seems to always fall on something far away and far above the other two's heads; he's very tall, which doesn't make him appear any more approachable. Haruka doesn't know how anyone thinks he'll be good with kids. Then again, the same could be said for him.

The pool is empty, and so is the rest of the room. They reach the deep end, and stand an awkward distance away from each other.

"So who's gonna be watching us?" Shimamura asks. He uncrosses his arms, crosses them again, starts tapping his foot.

Haruka's about to say he doesn't know, when the door to the women's locker room opens. The girl who comes out heads straight in their direction. She's in a swim suit, and is tying her hair up into a ponytail. Her eyes take each of them in quickly, with a sharpness that makes Haruka think she's sizing them up. There is a brisk edge to the way she walks, long purposeful strides that close the distance between them quickly.

"Hey. Guess I'm swimming with you guys?" she says when she reaches them. She plants her fists on her hips, and the first thing Haruka thinks of is a bulldozer, not because of how she looks – she isn't very big, isn't very tall – but simply because he can tell that hers is a personality that would easily leave his in the dust.

"You here because you got a callback?" Shimamura asks her, coming to stand beside Haruka.

She grins. "Yup. You three the only other ones?"

"Looks like it," Shimamura says. He rests his weight on one hip. "You swim in town? Don't think I've seen you around before."

"That's because I don't swim in town. I swim for a club in Fube, with Reiji-kun." She points at Amano, standing behind Haruka and Shimamura.

Shimamura makes a surprised sound, a nasally " _Heh?!_ ", and spins around to ask Amano for confirmation, but the girl says, "Oh, look, I think that's our guy." She points toward the far end of the pool.

Their supervisor comes through the doorway to the observation room - the glass-paned wall right behind the shallow end. He's dressed in typical lifeguard attire – red swim trunks and white shirt, a whistle around his neck. He has long, shaggy dreadlocks, kept out of his face with a headband. Under one arm he carries a clipboard.

"Hey recruits," he calls, raising a hand in greeting as he nears. "Nice to see you all found the place. That puts us at a good start, and if everything goes as planned we'll be out of here in no time."

He introduces himself with an easygoing smile ("Hey guys, I'm Satou. Just call me Satou."), then gives them the run-down of what they'll be doing: diving in, front crawl to the end, butterfly back, then breaststroke, then backstroke. "Simple stuff, no big deal. Just take your time," he says, taking out his clipboard and folding the top pages over until he gets to the sheet he's looking for. "We don't need you to race, I just need to see that you can do each stroke across one length. And don't worry too much about butterfly; we're mainly looking for the other three. Gotta see that you can do them if you wanna teach 'em."

It sounds more than easy enough, though when Haruka makes his way to the end of a lane after a few minutes of stretching by the bleachers, it's with the realization that these will be the first people outside of his group of friends who will see him swim anything other than freestyle. He feels, for just a moment, like he's about to do something inauthentic. Like he's about to do something blasphemous, even. And what if he gets into the pool and forgets how to swim every other stroke?

"Hey, you guys specialize in anything?" the girl asks from Haruka's right, pressing her goggles in place over her eyes. She gives both arms several firm slaps, the sound resounding off the high walls.

"I do back," Shimamura chimes in eagerly, on Haruka's left. His smile is a bit cocky, a bit hopeful, but the girl doesn't appear to notice. Shimamura turns to Amano on his other side, who says quietly: "Breaststroke."

In the silence that follows, Haruka feels compelled to answer.

"I…free."

The girl lets out a  _heh_  sound, shows her teeth as she crouches down, ready to dive. "How perfect. I'm butterfly."

"Wait, serious?" blurts Shimamura. "How long have –"

"Get ready for the whistle," their instructor calls, standing at the pool's halfway point.

Haruka crouches, fingertips against concrete, vision tinted darker by his goggle lenses. He feels a moment's swell of anticipation, the water so near, and then the whistle sounds shrilly and they're all in.

It's clear from the second they all break the surface that even though they aren't supposed to race, none of them is willing to be last. Their energy sends a current through the water, twining around Haruka's limbs and then seeping into his muscles, warming him and filling him with adrenaline. It feels like they're all taunting each other, egging each other on to go faster, but not fast enough to lose their cool and make their lungs scream for air. Haruka's pace is a several levels beyond relaxed, but still far from the furious all-out of his competition days.

He's easily the first to the turn, just as he'd intended because he knows the transition into the butterfly will feel strange. When Rin had first given him lessons, it had felt like someone else was controlling his body even though he was the one doing the swimming. The movements no longer feel completely foreign, just like rarely-treaded territory – both arms moving up over his head in tandem, a burn in his shoulders that grows and travels down his back and into his abdomen. Even the water rushing over his ears is different. Louder, maybe. Stronger. Complete submersion and emergence, like waves engulfing him over and over, streaming through his hair, pushing him under and then up. With butterfly, he almost has to force the water to part for him. There is no leisure in this stroke, no way to try to go slow without not going at all.

Two lanes over, the girl who said she specializes in the stroke catches up and begins to pass him. Haruka hears her splashes in the brief moments his ears are clear, but he doesn't bother trying to speed up; there's no hope of catching up, and the gap only widens. He knows his form isn't stellar, but he knows it isn't terrible, and he doesn't fall behind anyone else. Rin and Rei would have a cow if they saw him now, though.

He can imagine Nagisa tagging along down the length of the pool beside him while he does the breaststroke, can practically hear Nagisa's cheers of  _Wow, Haru-chan, look at you go!_  It isn't Nagisa, but Amano who is right on his heels by the end of that length, and Haruka is most happy to be finished with breaststroke, because while butterfly is the most physically demanding, he's always felt it hardest to built up momentum with breast. Too much up and down, too much bobbing; he's never been able to pick up Nagisa's art of extending his strokes at the end of the last leg.

Shimamura makes his move during the final length, steadily catching up while Haruka stares at the ceiling and wills himself not to hit his head against the wall when he reaches it. Backstroke feels the most natural, like an upside down free, but predicting what's coming ahead by what he sees above feels like trying to see things through smudged lenses.

They all finish within seconds of each other. Haruka doesn't know who finishes when in relation to whom, except for the fact that the girl is the first to touch the wall – her shout of triumph confirms it. The crowded sounds of disturbed water go quiet except for the  _glug glug_  of the gutter, and Haruka can't tell if the buzzing feeling inside of him is because the experience was exciting, or just downright strange. His heart rate has picked up, and the others are breathing quickly as well. It feels like there should be a crowd cheering, even though their times would be horrendous.

"All right, nice. Thanks guys," their supervisor says. "Looks like you're free to go. We'll call you up soon."

"That's it?" the girl says, still a bit breathless, but grinning. She takes off her goggles, wrings out her ponytail.

"That's it. Keep an eye on your phones, all of you. You're looking like a good group."

They all pull themselves out of the water, and Amano goes straight to talk with the advisor while the others drip onto the pool ledge.

"That was fun," the girl says to Haruka and Shimamura, and Haruka can't tell how genuine she's being. "Hopefully we'll see each other again."

"But I didn't catch your name," Shimamura says mournfully as she heads away, too quiet for her to hear. He turns to Haruka. "Did you?"

Haruka tells him he didn't, and starts for the changing room. Shimamura tags along with him, and finally says in a rush, when Haruka has changed and is slinging his bag over his shoulder to leave, "You know, I swam against your team in a relay once a couple years ago. You guys blew everyone out of the water. I've always wanted to swim against you again."

Surprised, Haruka only says, "Oh."

"I mean, not really against  _you_  because we swim different strokes, but we kinda just did swim against each other. Anyway, I'm basically trying to say I hope we both get this job, because it would be cool to swim together." He gives a winning grin, towel draped over his head, swimming bag in one hand, backpack weighing his other arm down. He looks a little bit like an over-eager Labrador who's been told to fetch too much at once. Haruka resists the brief urge to smile. He can already tell that Shimamura is the type of person everybody is bound to like no matter what.

"Me too," he says.

He wonders, on the way to the train station, when exactly he swam the relay Shimamura was talking about. What team had Shimamura been on? Would Haruka even remember them if he knew?

And what about Amano, and the girl? He thinks he would have at least heard about a girl as strong in butterfly as this girl is. She had been the first to finish; an all-around swimmer, and a strong one. Amano and Shimamura had been more than decent as well. Maybe they're all good, but were never good enough to go places.

Or maybe they're like him: good enough, but not wanting to go to the places offered. Time will tell, he supposes, if he sees them again.

* * *

There are two backpacks and two extra pairs of shoes in the entranceway when he returns home, and Makoto and Nagisa's voices cutting off quickly in the living room. Then footsteps, and just as Haruka shuts the door behind him, Nagisa appears in the hallway.

"Haru-chan!"

The pompoms on the ends of Nagisa's jacket strings bounce wildly as he launches himself down the hall. The floor shakes, the walls might even rattle, and then he latches onto Haruka's arm. He gives Haruka an examining look. "Where were you? You smell like chlorine. Were you swimming?"

"Yeah," Haruka says. He slips off his shoes, extracts his arm from Nagisa so he can drop his bag onto the floor.

Makoto appears much more calmly, leaning against the entranceway to the living room. "Don't you usually go in the mornings?"

"Yeah. I had job things to do."

Nagisa's eyes widen; Makoto's expression turns delighted.

"Do you have the job, then?" Makoto asks, pushing off the wall and coming over.

"Not yet," Haruka says. "They said they'll call me. What are you two doing here?"

"Staying for dinner?" Nagisa says, grabbing Haruka's wrist. "Hanging out and eating at the same time? Wow, Haru-chan, that's the best combination! I already told Mom I'd be home late, and I haven't seen you in a week."

Haruka looks at Makoto, but all he gets in response to his unspoken  _Are you the cause of this?_ is a carefully undisclosing quirk of the lips.

"All I have is mackerel," Haruka lies, which Nagisa understands as his cue to pull Haruka around Makoto and down the hall.

"Mackerel sounds great! Jeez, I'm starving!"

"You just ate a strawberry bread," Makoto says, bringing up the rear. Sure enough, amid the textbooks and notebooks on the living room table is a crinkled, crumb-covered pastry wrapper.

"Mako-chan, studying is  _draining_ ," Nagisa says, craning his head around to frown at Makoto even as he continues to pull Haruka after him. "One strawberry bread isn't going to tide me over."

Nagisa lets go of Haruka in the kitchen, and then opens the refrigerator and starts taking out packages of food. He has an eerily precise knowledge of where things live in Haruka's fridge.

"Are you staying too?" Haruka asks Makoto, and before Makoto can answer, he says, "I'll feed you both." He hasn't seen Nagisa in a week, and Makoto is gone during most of the day as well, and his house has been getting too quiet recently.

Nagisa lets out a whoop, Makoto gives a smile that's slightly apologetic but mostly just warm. Haruka cooks the mackerel while the other two do vegetables – "Rei-chan literally asks me every other day if I'm eating enough vegetables," Nagisa had said when he'd taken the carrots out of the fridge.

"So did they have to argue you out of swimming only free, or did you cooperate?" Makoto asks once they've sat down with their food. The smell of cooking fills the house and steam rises from their plates, but Nagisa has started digging in anyway, sucking in air as he chews to relieve his burning tongue.

Haruka gives Makoto a look he hopes is supremely unimpressed. "I can swim other things when I have to."

"Wow," Nagisa says through a cough, eyes slightly watery. "Haru-chan, you've come such a long way."

"Not really," Haruka says, and he takes a careful bite of his dinner.

He can't shake Nagisa's comment, though, in the sense that he doesn't think it could be farther from the truth. Nagisa can say whatever he wants as sarcastically as he wants, but the reality is that Haruka is still wondering what the hell he's doing. Swim teacher, a plan through summer – and then what? Maybe he'll never actually have things figured out. Maybe he'll always just be figuring things out as he goes along.

Nagisa suggests that they call Rei, and when all they get is voicemail he thrusts the phone into Haruka's face.

"Haru-chan, leave a message for Rei-chan."

"Ah, Rei." Haruka thinks for a second, lowering his chopsticks, which hold a slice of cooked carrot. "We're eating vegetables."

Nagisa passes the phone to Makoto, then he nudges Haruka in the side and says under his breath, "Nice thinking, Haru-chan. You saved me with that one."

All in all, it's easy to dispel his worries as the night goes on – food helps but good company helps more, especially when Rei calls back at half past six and excitedly tells them about the new laboratory he discovered on campus today, with the high tech whatchamacallems and the thingamajigs, and the high-power zooming telescopes, or maybe they're microscopes, he talks so fast Haruka can hardly keep up.

The best part, the part that leaves Haruka most at ease – because somehow Rei has always been the best at saying both the wrong things at the wrong times and the right things at the right ones, and when it's the latter it's with a grace and simplicity that can leave Haruka stunned for minutes – is when he tells Rei about the swimming trial, and Rei says with utter genuineness:

"Haruka-senpai, are you saying you swam the butterfly stroke? You must have looked beautiful."

* * *

Days roll by, dreary, cold, as slowly as the clouds that inch through the sky – clouds that are always gray and swollen, and the air always smells like rain. Makoto is busier than he's ever been, and often when Haruka contemplates going over in the afternoons to see how he's doing, he instead stays home because he thinks he'll just get another  _Sorry Haru, I have a lot of studying to get through._

He doesn't feel alone, per se, just that he's been using his voice a lot less. He swims in the morning and then comes home and has nobody to talk to. He gets the job – he knew he would – but training doesn't start until May, so it's a waiting game now, and the beginning days of April drag on, reluctant to end. Everyone is busy except him, and he feels like he's wasting time.

He often finds himself sitting on the patio in the backyard, hair damp and jacket wrapped tight around himself, answering the messages he got from Rin while he was at the pool. The sky is all shades of white or watery blue when the clouds allow it through, and the cats are gone, and the messages are about swimming – besting a previous practice time, training for this race or that one, for this meet or that one. They're messages full of motivation and drive and Haruka is glad to see them, even though a part of him feels drained a little bit more each time he tries to think of something to say back.

Almost two weeks go by like this – Haruka braves the increasingly damp mornings on the way to the pool, and finds a brief few hours of respite in swimming and teaching Hiro and coming home to text Rin on the patio.

_it happened,_  one of the messages says one morning, paired with a picture Rin sends of what looks like a restaurant chalkboard menu displayed out on a sidewalk. Half an hour after sending the picture, Rin had sent another message, apparently remembering that Haruka doesn't read English fluently.

_the second line from the bottom says they're serving mackerel_

_Is it the expensive restaurant?_  Haruka asks. He knows it might take a little while for Rin to see his message, so he leaves his phone on the patio and crosses his yard to the plants. He squats down and pulls out the weeds that have started showing – and maybe this is a project that could take up some time someday. He has a good handful when his phone buzzes, so he drops them in the grass, wiping his hands on his pants on his way back to the patio.

_yeah. i can't tell you how it compares to yours because it's too expensive_

_Why are you there, then?_

_there's an ice cream place next door_

_Isn't it cold?_

_ice cream generally is_

Haruka lets out a breath that's somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, and he knows – can feel it bone-deep – that Rin is proud of himself for that one.

_Stop smiling. Idiot._

_you can't see me,_ Rin sends, and then several seconds later:  _but it's warm here today. we have weird warm days sometimes_

Haruka doesn't quite know what the best thing to say would be without turning the conversation into something completely mundane. It's cold today. It's been raining a lot. I wish it was warmer. I want to swim outside, in the ocean.

_I haven't eaten mackerel today_ , he sends, feeling kind of stupid for it. He knows he could just let the conversation drop and Rin would probably take it to mean he's busy, and then Rin would get back to his life until tomorrow's exchange. But all Haruka has to look forward to after talking with Rin is nothing, or maybe weeding. With Rin, even though he isn't using his voice, it's still conversation – he hears it in his head and feels a little less mute.

_haru are you serious?! you better have some for lunch because you're freaking me out_

Haruka smiles, and can't quite reign in the muscles to make it fade.  _I bought meat for lunch today._

_don't fucking lie_

This usually happens at one point during their text exchanges – a pain will grow in the very center of Haruka's chest, a happy feeling mixed with a sad one, the feeling of missing someone and being in touch with them at the same time. He can see Rin so clearly when they talk, can see grins and devious eyes and eyebrows that pull up and pull down and make every sentence something dramatic.

And then Haruka's eyes will refocus and it's the fence that he sees, and the garden and the grass, and he's the only one there.

Rin is in the palm of his hand and on the other side of the ocean. There isn't really a way to adjust to that; at least he hasn't found it yet.

_I wouldn't lie about that._

_prove it. send me a picture._

Haruka's never sent a picture with his phone before, and doesn't know if he knows how, but it doesn't matter because the time for it is gone the next moment.

_oh hey i have to go. early practice today_

Haruka exhales, and the painful feeling in his chest floods out of him, leaving him emptied.

_Okay._

He sets the phone down, brings his knees up and crosses his arms over them. Even Rin is busy now, leaving him acutely aware of how incredibly un-busy he is. His entire body feels fidgety, strung tight by the hours of nothingness ahead of him.

It's mostly time to think, which is a dangerous thing because he thinks about his parents' concerns, worded very carefully in the letter he received a few days after that uncomfortable phone call he made, in which he informed them of his newest shift in plans.

In the letter they had said (in his mother's handwriting, but in two voices) things about taking unnecessary risks and not having plans and having to think hard about whether he's ready to face the outcomes of his choices. The suggestion that perhaps it's not too late to revisit the question of what he could do with a talent he's so blessed to have.

And of course when he begins thinking of blessed talents he begins thinking of what Rin had said out at the gazebo, about Haruka's talent and all the waste it's going to.

_You can't just not do anything with it._

Which is exactly what he's doing right now.

He knows his parents wrote it all in a letter because they don't want to seem too imposing by talking all over him. They're just worried, and want to give advice, but want to give him the option of foregoing it, because they want him to make his own choices. And Rin…

Rin loves greatness in other people as much as he loves it in himself, and this can be a double-edged sword. He never means to make people feel like he's overlooking them, but sometimes he has his sights so set on himself that he doesn't realize that what he thinks is praise, or motivation, or even friendly exasperation – what he thinks is him looking outwards – is the exact opposite.

Rin would feel guilty if he knew how he was making Haruka feel now, and Haruka feels guilty just thinking about it.

It's the lull, that's all that's making him feel so down. He's used to always having his friends around, to always having things he needs to do. There is an empty April between him and forward motion again, another obstacle to surmount. A few more weeks and he'll be back on track.

* * *

When the doorbell rings on Saturday afternoon, Haruka is lying on his stomach on the living room floor, doodling on a pad of paper he scrounged up while cleaning out his desk drawers earlier – something to try to pass the time. The entire side of his hand is coated in smudged pencil lead, which he wipes off the best he can on a clean part of the paper before he stands up. He kicks the notepad underneath the table, then goes to get the door.

Makoto is bundled up warmly on the doorstep, a collapsed umbrella in hand. "Hi, Haru," he says. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing really," Haruka says. He doesn't get the sense that Makoto wants to come inside – he wouldn't be dressed so warmly if he was just going to walk up the stairs to Haruka's house.

Makoto gives an understanding hum. "A few more weeks, right?"

"Yeah."

"Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go swimming," Makoto says quickly.

Haruka perks up. "Really?"

"I know you just went earlier, but maybe after lunch –"

"Let's go."

Makoto laughs, stepping aside to reveal the swimming bag on the ground behind him. "I figured that's what you'd say."

"Wait a second," Haruka says. He slips back inside, gathers up his things and is out the door in less than a minute.

It drizzles on the way to the station, and Makoto uses his umbrella to shield both of them. Haruka thinks about pointing out that it's not actually raining hard enough to get them wet, but Makoto would probably just give some vague sign of hearing him, but ignore him and keep the umbrella out anyway.

"Sorry I've been so busy," Makoto finally says, sounding a bit guilty, when the station is in view. "I finished things early this weekend to make up for it."

A group of teenage girls comes their way down the sidewalk, talking and laughing loudly. They part when they reach Haruka and Makoto, half the group stepping into the street and the other half forming single file to go past on the sidewalk, not even pausing their conversation in the process.

"You didn't make yourself do too much, did you?" Haruka asks, glancing over, searching for signs of fatigue or stress.

Makoto shakes his head, smiling in the way he's developed that tells Haruka nothing. "No, it's fine."

_Suspicious,_ Haruka thinks.

The train ride is quiet until Makoto reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out something that crackles – a chip bag that he rips open and then offers Haruka.

"Nagisa brought some to class the other day," he says, taking the bag back when Haruka makes no move toward it. "They're really addicting."

They're orange and smell somewhat poisonous; Haruka feels a little queasy watching Makoto stick them into his mouth, feels queasier still when Makoto starts licking the powder off of his fingers.

"You shouldn't eat before going swimming."

"It's just a snack," Makoto says, tone appeasing and fingertips stained orange even once the powder is gone.

"If you eat too much you'll throw up in the pool."

Makoto breaks into an explosive laugh, and then a fit of coughing. Haruka watches, alarmed, but Makoto waves him off with a strangled, "I'm fine, I'm fine!" A young woman in the far corner of the compartment glances up from her book, pulls her eyebrows together severely, and looks back down.

"Haru!" Makoto says, eyes streaming, once he's regained his breath. "We're not going to a meet, jeez!" He tries to look stern, but his mouth twitches into a smile, and then he's laughing non-stop, hand over his mouth as he tries to keep the volume down.

"Was it that funny?" Haruka asks.

"I don't know," Makoto says, shoulders shaking. "I think I just missed hearing you say things."

* * *

A senior citizens' class is just finishing up when they arrive at the pool, so they take a seat on the bleachers. Haruka doesn't usually notice the smell of the chlorine when he visits in the mornings – maybe he's become so entrenched in the habitual actions of everyday that his nose forgets to smell while at the pool, only remembers to breathe – but arriving later he's once more aware of the scent that permeates everything. Thick, pungent, it feels almost like a film over his nostrils, made even thicker by the warmth of the many bodies in the room right now.

Chlorine has never been a pleasant smell to him, but it has always been a welcome one, and as the seniors slowly make their way out of the pool and the lanes are laid out, he feels his muscles tense with the anticipation of diving right in.

He hears a chuckle, looks over to find Makoto watching him.

"What?"

"Nothing," Makoto says, with a smile that is very much not nothing.

Haruka realizes he's drumming his feet impatiently against the bleachers, and immediately stops. He turns his face away, until Makoto taps his shoulder as a sign that they can get in the pool, and then he's on his feet and off the bleachers in seconds.

The other lanes start to fill quickly with recreational swimmers, but Haruka still feels calmer than he can be anywhere else. He takes an easy lap, the air gone cool against his face each time he turns his head for a breath. The air even tastes of chlorine, a friendly bite on the tip of his tongue.

He thought Makoto would be swimming too, but when he makes it back to the wall he's surprised to find Makoto waiting, treading water, something surprisingly close to a smirk on his face.

"So, since you swim backstroke now…" Makoto says, and he's already turning to grasp the gutter, ready to take off.

Haruka doesn't think, just grabs the wall and hears Makoto say  _Go!_  and then he's swimming and the ceiling speeds by above. He doesn't realize until after they've left the lane markers bobbing in their wake, until his arms are tired and Makoto is already treading water again by the time he touches the wall, that the words  _I only swim free_  hadn't even made it into his head.

Makoto laughs, probably at the look of surprise on Haruka's face, and says, "Don't you have a reputation to uphold?"

Haruka frowns. "What's the point?" he says, and pushes off the wall to take another slow lap. Face back in the water, the frown dissipates. Because Makoto is swimming, which is infinitely more important that some stupid reputation he never even asked for, and Makoto is swimming with  _him_ , which is so comforting in its familiarity that he thinks he could just swim away all the worry he's been piling on.

"I still mostly swim free," he says, when they cross paths again, around the middle of the pool, and Makoto gets the implied  _I want a rematch._

"Give me a head start," Makoto says, tailing Haruka back to the wall. "Come on, I have no chance otherwise."

Haruka says nothing, just takes hold of the gutter and waits.

"Count to five," Makoto says, positioning himself into a sideways crouch against the wall. "Okay? Ready, go!"

Haruka rolls his eyes and starts counting, panics at three because Makoto is getting too far ahead too fast, and sets off after him.

His lungs are burning afterwards, but Makoto can hardly breathe, has his arm stuck into the gutter to hold himself up – maybe they should have started in the shallow end. Makoto's too busy panting to notice that they've won themselves a small audience – a few of the other swimmers had stopped in their lanes to watch and are only now returning to their laps. Haruka can't tell what sort of expressions they might wear beneath their goggles. He's too invigorated to care much.

"I'll beat you one of these days," Makoto says in a rush of air, mouth pulled up in a grin that's harsher than usual. A lost race is a lost race, even if it's lost with grace.

"Hm," is all Haruka says, before gliding away again, this time on his back. He stares at the ceiling, all the metal beams up there, the checker of windows so high up that no one will ever look through them, that only the pale wash of sunlight can traverse. Makoto passes by in the next lane, just swimming, and for a little longer Haruka has no trouble breathing.

* * *

They get lunch at a tiny ramen hut near the shoreline, where the broth is steaming and salty and the noodles fill the bowls forever, and the pork cutlets aren't mackerel but really, they're good enough. Makoto's nose is running by the time they're finished. He leaves a graveyard of crumpled napkins behind, and takes two more for the road.

Haruka feels heated through, cheeks and nose and hands warm, stomach full, his jacket left unzipped at the neck. It has stopped drizzling, but everything looks gray – the bits of visible sky, the ocean, even the sand on the beach. The smell is gray too. The air is too many parts cold air and too few parts sea salt.

"If I wasn't here to stop you, you'd actually swim in that, wouldn't you?" Makoto asks after a long bout of silence broken only once by the trumpeting sound of him blowing his nose.

Haruka has been staring fixedly out at the water – it looks nearly solid enough to walk on, eerily still. "Not yet," he says, a hint of defensiveness, his hands going into his pockets. "It's still too early."

Makoto chuckles. "You've gotten more sensible in the past couple of years, at least."

Haruka is about to deny any such thing, but Makoto makes a quick turn, shoulder bumping his, and starts toward the beach. Haruka hesitates for a moment, then follows. He hesitates again when he reaches the edge of the sand and Makoto is several paces ahead, dropping his bag and removing his shoes and socks.

_It's too cold to swim_  is on the tip of his tongue, but Makoto looks back at him.

"It's just nice to feel the sand when it isn't scorching hot on your feet," Makoto says.

Haruka lets his bag fall to the ground, takes off his shoes and socks. The sand is cold, but not unbearable. It's gritty and soft and spills between his toes and around his heels. He follows Makoto closer to the water. The tide is low, a languid push and pull of water. They stop a few paces before the damp line in the sand.

"Why are we standing here?" Haruka asks.

"I don't know," Makoto says. "I just don't feel like going home yet."

_Suspicious,_ Haruka thinks again, but only halfheartedly. The water looks so listless, like even _it's_  going through its tidal routine halfheartedly, only expending enough energy to create the slightest of whispers against the beach. It's hard to believe that high tide could exist, hard to believe the ocean won't just continue on forever like the exhausted thing it is now.

"Do you think I made a mistake?" Haruka says. Makoto doesn't have to ask what he's talking about, for which he is infinitely thankful. He can feel the immediate snag in the air when Makoto understands, like he's reeling the question in to think about it.

"Well…I think that you made a big decision, so you're going to be worrying about whether it was the right one for a while," Makoto says. "But… I think you know what's best for you." In tandem they look at each other, and Makoto smiles. "I mean, you didn't just make a choice off of a whim. You didn't just wake up one morning and decide you suddenly didn't like school and wanted to do this instead. You thought about it. And it was a big decision. It's normal to second-guess that kind of thing. I don't think you'd be rational if you just did things and didn't look back on them and question yourself."

"I don't like having to sit around and not do anything."

"You're not patient," Makoto agrees pleasantly.

Haruka digs his toes into the sand, looks away. "I feel like I'm wasting my time."

"Honestly? You want to know what I think?"

Haruka nods, jaw set stubbornly.

"I think you're allowed to feel this way, and I think you're allowed to regret things, even if it's just more because you're worried than actually regretful. But…what was the point of doing what you were doing in school?"

"Nothing really," Haruka mumbles. He can't tell if he feels better because this is what he needed to hear, or because it's what he wanted to hear, or if he doesn't feel better at all.

"Exactly," Makoto says. "So I think I get to remind you that you didn't just throw things in the air. Wait a little bit longer, until this job actually starts, and then see if you still feel how you do now."

"Waiting's hard." Haruka sighs. "I think too much."

"You should find something to do."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Start a rock collection? Learn to drive? Hang out with Ran?"

"I'm not going to –" Haruka starts, but he realizes that Makoto is joking about the last one. "Shut up," he mutters.

Makoto laughs. "Just don't let her see you all gloomy. She'll be crushed. She'll paint you more rocks."

Haruka zips up the top of his jacket, buries his chin into the collar. "It's more than just this decision, about quitting school and taking this job." He looks at his feet, wiggles his toes and watches the sand stream off. He can feel Makoto waiting, can feel it in the expectant pressure in the air. "I haven't really known what I've been doing since the end of high school. If – do you ever think – the scouts…" He feels flustered, and kicks at the approaching water, but it slows and recedes before it gets to him, giving him a sigh for his efforts. "If then I'd at least know what I was doing?"

"Would you?" Makoto says simply, a question with nothing disguised beneath it, leaving a space only Haruka can fill with an answer.

Haruka snorts quietly. "No." He looks over at Makoto's feet, can't raise his eyes any higher. "Maybe I'd know more, though. Have some idea of what's coming."

"Maybe," Makoto says, with an airiness that Haruka visualizes as a shrug.

Haruka looks out over the ocean. He narrows his eyes and wonders if he sees a speck of a fishing boat in the distance, or if it's just the water's reflection. "I…I talked to Rin. He talked to me about it."

Makoto exhales, and it sounds like relief, like he's suddenly figured out where this is all stemming from. "He's going to have to let go of this some day."

"I think he has," Haruka says. He gives a stiff shrug. He feels the discomfort gnaw its way back down his arms, feels the antsyness in his chest, and the lethargy that makes him loathe to do anything about it. "Mostly. Except for sometimes."

"Rin…" Makoto trails off, makes a warm sound in his throat that isn't quite a laugh. "Sometimes he tries to motivate when it isn't needed."

Haruka looks at Makoto, feeling like he's missing something. There had been something sentimental in that statement, something more personal than just a few throwaway words. But Makoto's smile is just a Makoto smile, directed first out at nowhere over the ocean, and then at him, and it's probably something Haruka doesn't have to know about. Who knows what Rin and Makoto talk about on their free time, anyway. Who knows what Rin bugs Makoto about when no one else is around.

"You and professional swimming…" Makoto gives a one-shouldered shrug, a bouncy, unconcerned motion. "I'm sure you could've found a way to like it. But you've never really been the type of person to do things you don't think you need."

It's a nod toward a conversation they had a long while ago, when decisions were pending and Haruka had asked Makoto to  _Help, actually just tell me something,_ and Makoto had asked him,  _What do you think you need in order to be happy?_

It had thrown Haruka for a loop, because for so long it had been  _for the team._  And now the team was going away regardless, and it was for himself solely that he was – that he  _should be_ , as Makoto had reminded him with that question – making a choice.

What had made him happy? What did he think he'd need to be happy? They hadn't been light questions. He wanted to swim, but he didn't want to be erased by swimming.

_I don't need to give my swimming to anyone,_ he had told Makoto, after a few days of mulling the question over.  _I don't think._ And Makoto had smiled, proud and supportive no matter what the answer would have been.

"I think you're being free," Makoto says now. "There's a difference between that and being careless. You're still doing things. But your own way. Honestly, with things how they are now, I have a hard time imagining you doing things any different. Does that even make sense?" He laughs, short and under his breath, then tips his head back so he can look at the sky. "I guess I just feel like you're still being you, even if the road you're taking isn't traditional. It's still genuine. It's Haru, because it isn't what anyone else is asking you to do."

"I don't have a plan though."

"Maybe you do and you don't know it yet," Makoto says.

Haruka frowns, but Makoto just tilts his head to look at him, smile holding steady.

"Maybe," Haruka relents, looking away.

Time stretches on. The bottoms of his feet start to grow cold in the sand, and the water comes closer and closer to his toes.

"Do you…" He gestures his hands helplessly. "Ever feel like you don't know what you're doing, too?"

"Hmm… Not that often," Makoto says. There's a pause, time for an inhale, and then he continues on. "But sometimes I'll just be lying in bed at night and I'll think about it and I just, I don't know, feel like I have no idea. I have plans, but what if I just can't accomplish them? What if everything I'm doing gets me nowhere, or what if it's not right, or what if I'm just…" He gives a long exhale. "But that's only sometimes."

"What do you do when you feel that way?" Haruka asks. He looks over, and finds Makoto's forehead pinched, a troubled expression that leaves him worried.

"I guess…I just tell myself that I can either keep going or just stop," Makoto says. "You already know – I want to be able to help my parents out, but do something that I'll like also. But how much do I really like what I'm doing? I  _like_ it," he says quickly, but then sighs. "I don't dislike it, but will it stay that way in the future? I don't know. If it's the future, who knows." He shrugs. "But I want to start swimming with you more. It's really a shame I haven't been in the pool for so long."

It feels like a dodged bullet, but Haruka doesn't know how to keep prying. It's always Makoto doing the needling; there's no way he'd be able to without being blatantly obvious.

"Growing up is hard," Haruka mumbles.

Makoto chuckles. "Yeah. But I think what you're doing is pretty amazing."

_Stop making this about me_ , Haruka wants to say, but he bites his tongue. He feels anything but amazing, and the question is, how can Makoto still think he is?

And what is Makoto harboring, and how much does he actually want Haruka to know? How much does he want Haruka to try to get it out of him on his own?

The water licks at their toes, and Makoto jumps back with a strangled squeak. Haruka flinches at the cold. The skin beneath his toenails hurt, like they've been stuck with pins. The water retreats, but the sand he's standing on is still icy. His heels throb.

"Haru, how are you still standing there?!" Makoto splutters, several paces behind him.

Haruka turns and heads for his shoes. "It's just water," he says, passing by Makoto, who's trying to rub the wet sand off of his feet. "You're the one who decided to stand in the sand barefoot."

"Don't lie!" Makoto calls after him. "You're cold too; it's all over your face!"

"Cold isn't on my face," Haruka says, picking up one of his socks and turning it right side out.

Makoto catches up to him, sending sand everywhere, all over their shoes and bags. "Your toenails are blue," he says.

Haruka burrows his toes into the sand. "I'm not cold." 


	9. Carbonation (Spring - part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LORD why are my chapters getting so long, it just makes it take forever to edit on top of everything else. Um, a wild headcanon plays a role in the end of this chap (though it's been in the rest of the story but still) - I kinda wish Haru had never stopped calling Gou Kou bc how cute would that have been?! Aaaaand I'm still having fun working ES things into my plot. Anyway, I feel like my eyes are falling out of my head from the last intense edit I gave this chapter, and I hope I haven't missed anything disgustingly glaring. 
> 
> To answer a question I've gotten a few times and thus think must be on more ppls' minds - Rin is coming back in 2 chapters, but he's still playing a part in the next chapter as well. Also, Haruka is going to have to start Doing Things soon, and I'm looking forward to that but I think I'll also miss the calm of these past couple chapters.

Hiro climbs out of the deep end, spilling water all over Haruka's feet. Once he's on the cement, he pulls off his goggles to stare up at Haruka imploringly.

"Haru-chan, after I learn this what can I learn next?"

Haruka almost ruffles a hand through Hiro's hair – maybe it's something he's seen Makoto do with the twins so much it's rubbing off on him. But Hiro's hair is wet, and it isn't a very Haruka thing to do anyway, so he catches himself.

"Next you should keep practicing what you know until lessons start. I can't really teach you anything more."

"Aw, but that's gonna take so long! I don't wanna wait." Hiro sticks out his lower lip. "I wanna keep learning things, Haru-chan."

Haruka motions toward the pool, the water rippling and the lane marker bobbing from Hiro's exit. "You're still working on dives, aren't you?"

Hiro breaks into a grin and pulls his goggles back down over his eyes. He gives Haruka a little push in the side. "Okay, watch out Haru-chan. You're in the way."

Haruka steps away, around the corner of the pool, and Hiro raises his arms over his head, hands pressed flat together, palm to back.

"What are the important things to remember?" Haruka says.

"Keep your arms straight and your hands together," Hiro chants.

"And try to keep your feet pointed when you're going in," Haruka says.

Hiro bends over, fingertips aimed for the water. "Okay. Say go."

"Go."

Like everything else Hiro has learned so far, he excels at diving as well. He enters the water with hardly a splash.

"Was I good?" he says excitedly when he resurfaces, hair plastered flat over his head, making his ears appear to stick out like a monkey's.

Haruka sits down, puts his feet in the water. The gutter gurgles and splutters beneath him.

"How did you feel?"

Hiro grins – there's a new hole in his smile, another tooth lost on the bottom. "I think I did really good."

"Good," Haruka says. "That means you did."

"So why do I have to wait to learn more?" Hiro asks, grabbing onto the gutter next to Haruka's feet. He doesn't sound whiny, just curious. Sometimes Haruka gets the feeling that Hiro thinks he has all the answers to everything.  _Practice_ , he tells himself.  _There'll be a lot more of this soon._

"You already know how to do the main strokes. The next step is improving them, and that's something you mostly do by yourself."

"By just doing them more?"

Haruka nods. "People can help you, but you're the one who has to do the hard work if you want to keep getting better."

"I'm a hard worker," Hiro says. He pushes off the wall and splashes onto his back, and the momentum starts carrying him away. "I wanna swim free. Like you, Haru-chan!"

Haruka's eyebrows fly up – amusement, disbelief, he's not sure. "You should find out what you like to swim best first, before you decide something like that."

"How did you know you liked free best?" Hiro asks, tipping his chin down to look at Haruka. His eyes are round and curious behind the light blue tint of his goggles.

Haruka thinks for a moment, looks at the water lapping around his shins, picking up the fine hairs and sending them swaying. "I don't know," he decides to say, lifting a shoulder halfheartedly. "It just felt right."

"Okay," Hiro says. He floats away for a bit, until he bumps into the lane marker, and then he turns himself around and slowly starts floating back. Ishikawa-san is doing her laps on the other side of the pool; all the lanes in between are empty. Two elderly women bob around the half-circle of the shallow end that's partitioned off by the first lane marker. They're a chatty pair, but the echoes distort the sound of their conversations.

Haruka hesitates, then says, "Hiro, you're a really good swimmer."

Hiro grins, breaks from his back float to grab back onto the wall. "I know."

"Have you thought about joining a club?"

"A little bit," Hiro says. "Mom says after summer swimming lessons, I can join the club here for all year if I want."

"Do you want to?"

Hiro starts climbing out, and water rains off of him once again, pattering onto the cement and splashing into the pool. He shakes the water out of his hair; Haruka raises an arm to shield his face.

"I don't know," Hiro says. "But swimming lessons didn't even start yet. Haru-chan, I hope you'll teach me."

"I'm already teaching you."

"But more!" Hiro says, feet slapping around Haruka as he goes to take up position for another dive. "I wanna know how to swim like how you did with your friend! Super fast!"

"You'll probably get someone better to teach you that."

"But Haru-chan, you're the best! Come on, let's do more dives! I wanna do a jumping one!"

Haruka can't help smiling, even though keeping up with Hiro is a daily drain, some type of small-scale marathon he puts himself through every morning. Now that he's sitting down, he doesn't want to get up again.

"How about you do the standing ones a few more times before we try a jumping one."

Hiro looks at him suspiciously. "How many times is a few?"

"Five," Haruka says.

Hiro groans, but raises his arms over his head. "Let's  _go_  then!"

* * *

Around mid-April, Haruka starts running. Mornings before swimming, then again in the evenings, mostly down at the beach but sometimes into and around the edges of town while the sidewalks are largely empty.

He figures he might as well since the weather is good for it – the skies are clearing fast, but both ends of the day will stay cool for a while longer and typhoon season isn't for several months, so really the timing is perfect. He can exert himself and not overheat, has cool air to fill his lungs and keep him vitalized. In the mornings the air is so crisp it acts like a jump-start, dispelling the hazes of sleep completely. The smell of brine leaves him feeling refreshed, and clean, and a good kind of empty. Reset and ready for each new day.

In the evening he starts his runs right before the sun hits the horizon line. The sunshine from the day still lingers as residual warmth in the air but there is nothing that isn't in shade. The ebb and flow of the ocean is an undercurrent to his feet pounding against the ground, to his breaths rushing short and quick from his mouth. It's at this time of the day that his energy feels boundless. Like he could run forever, straight into the sunset if he could run over water.

When Makoto brings it up, Haruka says he's getting into shape for lessons, which he knows Makoto doesn't believe for a moment. He doesn't even know why he bothers lying, and is surprised Makoto pretends to swallow it so easily.

Sometimes, instead of running – instead of jogging – he sprints. Along the empty beach with the sand tinted orange and the water a shimmering mix of pinks and purples. He loves sprinting when it's windy, even just slightly breezy, because if he's fast enough it feels like he's cutting straight through a storm. Sand sprays up behind him and he squints his eyes and feels his hair whisk off of his face and blow around like something wild.

But he isn't running anywhere, or from anything. The scenery in the background hardly moves – watchful mountains on one side, jagged cliffs and the endless ocean on the other. Afterwards, he just retraces his steps up the beach or out of town, exhilarated but also winded, a stitch in his side or a sandpaper feeling in his throat that just gets worse the more he swallows.

Makoto said to get a hobby. Which, honestly, Haruka doesn't feel like doing – he doesn't want to go out and  _get_  anything. Doesn't want to possess anything else, before he figures out what to do with what he already has.

But he's been drawing. Trying to. He isn't sure why. When he was younger he'd draw pictures for his grandmother all the time; he liked the act of giving them, liked the certainty he felt while drawing that she would be happy for each one.

There isn't a goal like that now, but he feels it in his fingertips, his arms, like a little nudge in his brain – there's an image he needs to put on paper, and when he touches his pencil down it begins so easily. Quick strokes, long strokes, fast, slow,  _scritch scratch,_  and sometimes he gets so ahead of himself that there's a  _snap_  and a piece of lead flies into some shadowy corner, or into his face.

He's using a mechanical pencil, one of those ones younger kids often start off with, with the extra thick lead. He found it at the bottom of the same drawer he found the notepad in when he was cleaning, and for some reason he's become attached. It's cherry red with a gel-filled grip that forms around the contours of his fingers. He sits on the living room floor sometime after lunch, turns to a fresh sheet of paper each day, and tries again.

He always ends up with some sort of border, and it's a pretty ugly thing, he thinks – dark around the edges of the page, layers of pencil on pencil that make him think of rough waters or of the feeling of the wind when he's running. The shading feathers out towards the center, where there is a blank space about the size of his hand, smudged with the lead he's spread around without intending to. Once he gets this far he stares at the blank space and wonders why he's even drawing at all. There's nothing in his head except the desire to draw, which feels like a blank space all of its own.

_What good is drawing, anyway?_  he often asks himself, either in frustration or with his cheek pressed to the floorboards in defeat. If it's the latter, he hardly ever remembers sliding all the way down onto the floor, but it happens a few times, several, many. Once he had traced his own hand in the blank space, made it into a turkey. Another he had drawn Iwatobi-chan for the hell of it, and then glowered at it sulkily. Usually he leaves the space blank.

By the end of the day the notepad is back beneath the living room table and he's out on the beach again. He goes to bed exhausted and wakes up feeling tired. Like he's trying to compensate for something he can't compensate for. Like he's running himself empty trying to get full.

_Stop it,_ he tells himself, whenever he feels the pity party coming on. He decided he would stop stagnating, that he would grow, so there's a resolution under his belt now. It's about time he takes himself up on it.

He just needs a bit of inspiration.

* * *

"I need inspiration," he says when Makoto comes to the door, after Mrs. Tachibana calls up the stairs for him. It's late afternoon, a Friday. He hears the twins watching TV in the living room – chatter from the speakers and their chatter over the top.

"Oh," Makoto says. For just a moment he looks perplexed, but he blinks and it's gone. "So, are you ready to run?"

"What?"

"I was thinking we should run," Makoto says in a clarifying tone. He motions over Haruka's shoulder, at the general outdoors.

"What?"

"I was about to come get you! Don't say 'what' again."

Haruka doesn't say it again, just narrows his eyes in a way that implies the question.

Makoto leans against the doorframe, crosses his arms loosely. "I've pretty much figured out when you run every day. Sometimes Mom or the twins or I see you going up or down the stairs. Figured I'd join you. Good post-studying wake-up."

"Are you going to run in that?" Haruka asks, because Makoto still looks like he's dressed for school – beige pants and a sweater, and on his feet are pig-face slippers.

Grinning, Makoto says, "I was going to change and come get you, but you were too fast for that."

So Haruka goes home to get into his running gear, and then waits on the steps beneath Makoto's house, eyes on the some point so far away he can't really tell if it's ocean or sky anymore, just that clouds could very well be ocean glitter. He hears the front door open, hears Makoto call something back into the house, and moments later the main gate squeaks open and Makoto comes down the stairs.

"Ready?" Makoto asks him, and Haruka takes the hand offered and lets himself be pulled up.

It's a bit earlier than Haruka usually leaves, and he can hear kids running around in the backyards of some of the houses they pass by – a lot of those unnerving screams that sound both like play and like bloody murder.

As they hop-trot down the last section of steps, Makoto tells him, "I don't think I can just give you inspiration."

"That's okay," Haruka says. He hadn't expected Makoto to give him anything, he had just felt like saying it and seeing what it would do. Though then again – "Do you have pencil lead?"

"Like…refills? Why?"

"I'm drawing something."

"Really?" Makoto says, sounding intrigued. "What?"

They start the jog into town. People mill about at food stands or are on their way into shops or down the sidewalk. The stores with fluorescent signs in the windows have them lit, but it isn't dark enough yet for them so they just give off a dull glow:  _Welcome, Open,_ and even one in English –  _Open,_ which Haruka can read. The windows are clear when Haruka runs past them, but glint into his eyes when they're up ahead.

"I don't know," he says.

He's sure he gets a raised-eyebrow look for that, but doesn't check to see.

"Yeah, I have lead," Makoto says.

"I need the big kind, though."

Makoto's laugh is jarred by his footfalls. "I'll see what I can find."

* * *

When they return, Makoto's house smells like food – rich and salty, a tang of seafood. Haruka imagines dark broth and crab legs and feels his stomach pang hungrily. The warmth of the indoors makes him feel muggy, though; the air outside had been cool against the sweat on his forehead and neck, but inside the house his skin feels like it's coated in a sticky film.

Up in Makoto's bedroom, he throws the window open and stands in the inward draft. Something lands on his head and falls over his face – a clean shirt, which he changes into once the sweat has dried. He topples like dead weight onto Makoto's bed, leaves his legs hanging over the edge. He hears Makoto rummaging through the desk, drawer by drawer.

"I'll check downstairs in a bit," Makoto eventually says. "We have an old drawer filled with crafts stuff."

"Okay."

"You should stay over tonight. And I'll come to the pool with you tomorrow morning."

"Don't you have things to do?" Haruka asks. Makoto's backpack lies open by the closet, books rising out like teeth, and the top of his desk is piled high with textbooks and papers, leaving just enough space in the center to work.

"Not really," Makoto says. He sits on the end of the bed, next to Haruka's knees, but Haruka's staring at the ceiling – a wash of white that makes his eyes feel heavy.

"Okay."

"How's waiting been?"

Haruka sighs. "Being bored is so boring. I'm tired of feeling like this."

"I'll run with you," Makoto says. "Every night. Come get me."

Haruka tilts his head down, chin to chest so he can peer at Makoto. "What if you're busy?"

Makoto shrugs. "Make me. I don't care."

Haruka waits for something to give in Makoto's smile, but nothing does, so he lets his head fall back. "Okay."

Feet thunder up the stairs. Haruka hardly has time to steel himself before the Ren and Ran burst into the room with twin peals of  _"Haru-chan!"_  The mattress bounces, and he bounces with it. Ren almost bounces right on top of him, but Haruka rolls out of the way before his ribs can be crushed.

"Haru-chan, the rocks got all their paint washed off," Ren says, looming over him and looking sulky.

"Mom didn't like them on the grass anyway," Ran says, sitting on her heels at the edge of the bed. "She says we should just bring them back to the beach."

"Or that we can put them around the garden," Ren says defensively.

"But they're all  _boring_  now," Ran says. Ren glares at her, but she ignores him and says, "Are you sleeping over, Haru-chan?"

Haruka sits up, shakes the hair out of his face. "I guess so."

The twins cheer, fists pumping in the air. Up the stairs comes the call for dinner.

"Haru-chan sits next to me!" Ren says, grabbing Haruka's wrist.

Ran grabs his other wrist. "No, he sits next to me!" They tug him off the bed, to his feet, toward the door. Almost tug him apart.

"Well, he usually sits next to me," Makoto says, following them out.

To the twins' discontent, Haruka sits next to Makoto at dinner, but to their delight he sits between them on the floor when they watch a TV movie afterwards. The genre is horror, and Haruka isn't surprised. Ran shrieks into one of his ears and Ren shrieks into the other. Makoto hides behind him and clutches his shirt so tightly it probably stretches – but then again it's Makoto's shirt, so he doesn't really care except for when the collar gets too tight at his throat and he has to remind Makoto not to choke him. Every now and then he sips from the soda Ran gave him when they all sat down – and he had pointedly ignored whatever look Makoto had given him then.

The taste is kind of sweet and kind of bitter, would be more enjoyable if the carbonation didn't leave his throat feeling full of pins, and with every swallow he has to swallow three more times to soothe that niggling discomfort. Blood and guts in the movie, ringing in his ears. When he belches the first time, Ran gives him such a serious look of admonishment he almost laughs. And then she screams at the monster than jumps out on the screen, and Haruka flinches.

"That really didn't scare you at all?" Makoto asks later, coming back into his room after brushing his teeth. He still looks a little shifty-eyed, like he expects something to slink out from beneath the bed and take shape in the middle of the room.

"We can leave the lights on if you want," Haruka says through a yawn. His ears still ring faintly, but his head feels heavy on the pillow and his brain feels heavy in his head, and not even the light can fight a winning battle against his drooping eyelids.

Something lands on the bed, bounces against his hip.

"I found that downstairs," Makoto says.

Haruka rolls onto his side, picks up a small container of pencil lead.

"It's rainbow colored, though," Makoto says. "It's all we have in that size."

"It's fine," Haruka says. He yawns again, doesn't bother re-opening his eyes this time.

"Do you mind if I study a bit with the desk light on, or do you want me to go downstairs?"

"It's fine. You can stay."

The main light goes off, and then the desk light comes on, creating an orangey-red glow behind Haruka's eyelids. He hears the chair creak, hears rummaging sounds, papers being sorted, notebook pages being flipped through. The slide of a book across the desk, and he can tell it's a large textbook because the pages sound like tissue paper when Makoto turns them. And then pen on paper, scribbles and pauses, every now and then a tapping that Makoto probably does unconsciously, the pads of his fingers against the desktop.

Haruka listens for a while, to the cacophony of quiet noises in an otherwise silent house. But instead of keeping him awake, the sounds travel through him the way rain on the windows or the TV on low shush away any last bits of wakefulness. He's going to fall asleep any moment, but a part of him wants to resist the downward drag and listen a little longer, because it's nice to be falling asleep in a room that doesn't feel too large and too empty.

* * *

The next thing he's aware of is an incessant, muffled beeping. Instinct has him reaching for his phone even though the alarm he hears is unfamiliar, but his hand just goes over the side of the bed into nothingness. Then he hears a groan, hears the alarm shut off. He opens his eyes to near-darkness, lifts himself up and looks over to see Makoto with his hands over his face, a portrait of misery.

"You said you wanted to," Haruka says, voice cracking with sleep.

"Can I do take backs?" Makoto asks through his hands.

"If you're five, I guess."

But Haruka knows Makoto will start getting ready when he does, so he slings his legs out of bed and gets to his feet, because it's easier to just get moving right away. The can of soda from last night is where he left it on a back corner of Makoto's desk, and when he shakes it he finds there are still a few swigs left, maybe enough for a small caffeine boost, anything to make it easier to open his eyes. He downs what remains, grimaces when it slides down his throat flat and syrupy. Somehow it's the most disappointing start to a day he's had in a while, but then Makoto trips trying to pull on his socks and the morning is already looking brighter.

Makoto still looks less than eager when the time comes to go outside – he slouches out the door with hands deep in his sweatshirt pocket and eyelids almost shut. The cold shocks him awake though, and when they're back home eating breakfast he says in a tone of wonder, cheeks flushed and hair windswept, "I actually feel more awake than I ever do for school."

Haruka would say that he feels more awake that he usually does with the rest of a day ahead of him, but he figures Makoto probably already knows.

* * *

When they get to the pool, Hiro clambers out of the shallow end and meets Makoto with a flurry of questions –  _Wow, are you a super good swimmer too? Can you show me?_   _Want to race with us? –_ but it's later than Haruka usually arrives, so Ishikawa-san is already getting their things together and calls for Hiro to get ready to go.

Hiro crosses his arms, face pouty. "Haru-chan, is your other friend coming back yet?" he asks, looking at Makoto while he says it.

Haruka looks at Makoto too, sees that he's smiling a bit awkwardly.

"Not yet."

"You said he went far away," Hiro says. "How far?"

"He's in America right now."

Hiro's eyes widen, and he forgets that he wants to look grumpy. "Wow! Why?"

"He's swimming there."

"Is he winning races?"

"He's probably winning some," Haruka says. "He's the best swimmer I know."

"I want to see Min again. I like him."

Haruka is confused for a moment, more confused by the sound Makoto makes, like he's coughing and choking at the same time. And then it clicks and he can just imagine Rin's mouth dropping open in a flabbergasted  _Huh?!_

"His name is Rin."

"Oh, yeah." Hiro's eyebrows draw together in puzzlement. "That's a funny name."

When Hiro and Ishikawa-san are gone, Haruka waits a moment, then looks at Makoto, whose expression is one of joyful disbelief.

"Min," Makoto repeats, voice wobbly, like he's holding back another laugh. "Which one of us is going to tell him?"

Haruka pulls his goggles on, allows himself one quiet chuckle, knows that if Rin had been here to hear it there would be steam coming out of his ears. "Probably you. He's less likely to threaten to kill you."

* * *

When he gets home, his phone sits where he left it yesterday afternoon, in the center of the living room table, but now the notification light is blinking a dark red. Low battery, once a much rarer occurrence, though with only Rin texting him regularly it still doesn't happen all that often.

He checks the charge as he's heading upstairs to plug it in, and sees that there's a message waiting as well.

_i set a record training time yesterday. redeeming myself_

He tries to count backwards – the yesterday of yesterday, and what day is today? – and trips on a step, stubbing his toe and having to throw an arm out to the wall to regain his balance. It feels like he's torn the toenail, but after a muttered curse and a glance down he sees no blood. There's a jagged feeling in his throat as well, a twang of guilt. Does Rin think he's been ignored? Probably not, but Haruka can't help wondering.

What's more important, though, is the news. A training time is just a training time, but any kind of record is a record, and Rin wouldn't lie about being back on his game. Australia and its aftermath are like the relics of another person entirely. Rin no longer lets losses pile up until he's crumbling; Haruka probably should never have worried.

_Congratulations. I'm proud of you,_ he sends, once he's made it safely up the staircase. The pain in his toe is an undercurrent to the pattering in his chest, building excitement, relief maybe.

He hooks his phone to the charger atop his headboard, then sits and waits. He understands why it's called a swell of pride, because it feels like something is pushing his ribs out from the inside. Nothing painful, nothing alarming. Just that there's a bit more room for happiness to fill in.

Before Rin had left for America, before he had even made a definitive decision about where he would be leaving to, there had been one day – one vague day out of many vague days of pressure, pressure, pressure – when he had divulged to Haruka:  _You know, I can go back to Australia. My old coach sent me a letter._

Haruka doesn't remember where they were, or when it was, only that it was one of the few times Rin had brought up his own options instead of pestering Haruka about his. Only the shadows of self-doubt in Rin's eyes, because as much as he liked to talk, even he had been weighed down by thoughts of the future.

Rin had gone on, words slow and fast and slow again, like he'd been too far ahead of himself but also too far behind:  _But what are the chances, you know… America? Apparently it's only because that coach and my Australian coach know each other really well that the one in America started paying any attention to me. I mean…this never happens. It feels like a huge chance, doesn't it?_

And Haruka had said,  _It does,_ because it had, and Rin had smiled like Haruka had just given him something he needed to hear, and said:

_My dream… You know, I want to take on the world. And the more of it I can see…the more of it I can take into my swimming, the more I achieve that dream. I don't want to wait, I want to start now. I want to do whatever I can to see as much of the world as I can, as soon as I can. Do you think...do you think that's being too reckless?"_

And Haruka had said no, because for Rin that wasn't recklessness. It was him knowing, simple as that. Knowing exactly what he wanted, and knowing that it could take him far away, if only to come back again.

He wonders if he had felt sad then, knowing that this would be separation again. He really can't remember what he felt listening to Rin.

_I'm gonna swim in Japan after I graduate of course,_ Rin had gone on to say, ego slipping in without his notice, a pompous little lift of his chin, but his grin had been pure abandon.  _But I think that every place does things a bit differently. I think I'll learn things abroad I won't be able to learn here, or by going back to Australia. I'm just – I'm really excited, Haru._

Maybe Haruka doesn't recall the words exactly as they had been, but he remembers them well enough. Rin  _is_  taking on the world now. Haruka knows that there is no  _if_  about it – Rin will have the world one day. He knows it, Rin knows it, it's so simple. So comforting to have something set in stone like that, to have someone he can believe in so unwaveringly.

He waits for his phone to stop blinking red, then he carries it around with him while he prepares a load of laundry. It doesn't take long for it to buzz atop the drier.

_really? do you have to sound like my mom?_

How would Rin say the words in person? Would he be exasperated? Slack-jawed and monotone?

A minute later comes the afterthought, and Haruka can hear it soft, pleased, and trying not to sound embarrassed:  _thanks_

Haruka feels warm, warmed by the clangs of the washer, warmed by the halfhearted sunlight through the windows, warmed by the phone in his hands – but the battery pack is starting to run too hot, so he hurries back upstairs to plug it in before it dies completely. For some reason he's always found the prospect ominous and irrevocable, even when he used to never use it.

* * *

The week goes by steadily, which is better than slowly, and when he shuts off his alarm and his phone says it's Saturday he's surprised, because didn't the cats just visit him and sit on his lap for over an hour in the backyard yesterday, on Tuesday, and didn't he just play board games with the twins yesterday, on Wednesday, and didn't Nagisa just come over with a bag of sweets, eat them all, and then throw up in his bathroom yesterday, on Thursday? They say time flies when you're having a good time, and maybe he was having some fun but maybe time just flies sometimes.

His morning shopping hangs off of his arms and his morning run lingers in the clammy, damp feeling of the his hair against the back of his neck. There is a satisfying burn in his calves as he makes his way up the stairs homeward, and then there is a familiar face appearing at the end of the pathway to his house. Or, he's still too far below to really make out the face, but the hair is unmistakable – a shot of red he hasn't seen in a while.

Kou spots him, raises a hand over her head. "Hi, Haruka-senpai!" she calls once he's closer, close enough to see that she looks relieved to see him.

"You're home for the weekend," he says, when he comes level with her. He doesn't ask why, instead looks behind her toward his front door and asks, "Were you looking for me?"

"I was," Kou says, looking slightly embarrassed at having been caught in the act. "I was wondering. Are you busy today?"

"I don't think so," Haruka says, which is stupid because he's never busy unless someone else decides to make him so.

Kou smiles. "Are you busy right now? For a few hours?"

"No." Haruka lifts the grocery bags. "I have to put these away though."

"Can you do it fast?"

"Yeah?"

Kou presses her lips into a line, presses the smile away. "I'll wait out here," she says, patiently but with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

Feeling like he's lost the general thread of things, Haruka makes his way into his house and puts his groceries away. When he steps back outside, Kou is still waiting by the stairs.

"Get a jacket, will you?" she says, before he can even shut the door.

Haruka turns around, goes back inside for a jacket. It isn't very cold out, but when she's in manager mode there's little point in arguing, so he slips his arms through the sleeves before coming back out for the second time.

"Better," she says, nodding her approval. "One more stop, okay?"

She starts down the stairs, and Haruka hastens to close the door and follow. They're heading for Makoto's, that much is clear, and it takes until they reach the main gate for Haruka to figure out what Kou could be doing back in Iwatobi.

"Happy birthday," he says, feeling graceless and thickheaded.

Kou grins at him, eyebrows raised. "You remembered a lot faster than I thought you would!"

Haruka can't decide if it's a compliment or some kind of jab. Either way, he opens the gate and they pass through the yard, and Kou knocks on the Tachibanas' door. A few moments later, footsteps approach from the inside.

Makoto looks tired, and then suddenly not tired, face lighting up when he sees Kou on the doorstep. When she asks, he's quick to assure her that he isn't busy, is just as quick to disappear up to his room to change out of his pajamas. "Happy birthday," he says to her, once he's back downstairs and putting on his shoes.

"Wow, you remembered way faster than Haruka-senpai."

_Thanks for making me look bad_ , Haruka thinks at Makoto, but Makoto looks far from apologetic, smile full of teeth. They ask in tandem, as they follow Kou out of the yard, "What are we doing?"

"You're coming over," Kou says. "Nagisa-kun's meeting us at the station near home. My brother's going to call, and I want to surprise him."

* * *

Haruka doesn't know how he feels about that. And he doesn't know how he feels about his uncertainty. Is there really that monumental of a difference between texting Rin and seeing his face? Apparently, because while Makoto and Kou chat away beside him, every little jolt of the train along the tracks makes the jumpy sensation inside of him jumpier, like popcorn popping but with the prospect of a less satisfying outcome.

Or a more satisfying outcome. He _is_ looking forward to seeing Rin. It's just that he's pretty sure he'll be standing there uselessly, without anything to say.

Nagisa is at the station when they get off, bounds up to them yelling, "Gou-chan, happy birthday!" He takes a paper-wrapped something out of the pocket of his coat, pushes it into Kou's hands. "It has raspberry filling. I picked it up on the way over. Eat it while it's still warm!"

Haruka sees Makoto give Nagisa a  _thanks for making us look bad_  look, but Nagisa just winks and links his arm through Kou's and starts them on their way.

The inside of the Matsuoka home is just as Haruka remembers it – cozy and warm, pottery full of plants, crisscrossing carpeting, the sweet peppery smell of spices. Kou fetches her computer from her room, brings it into the kitchen and sets it on the table. "He'll be calling soon," she says excitedly, ushering them all close, motioning for them to pull around the chairs.

Nagisa sits at her right, Makoto at her left. Haruka stands behind her, stares at a list of contacts displayed on the left side of the screen, some grayed out and some with a little green dot beside them.

Kou's phone buzzes in her pocket, and the icon that says  _Onii-chan~_  lights up with a  _ding!_

"He's ready!"

She clicks on the icon and a window pops up, dark at first, but then it flickers and brightens and there's Rin, looking like himself, chin on his palm and hood pulled up over his head.

"Huh?! The hell are all you guys doing?" he says, face lifting out of his hand. His voice is tinny over the connection but his expression – the creases between his eyebrows so deep it's like he's trying to carve canyons there – is perfectly clear.

"Surprise," Kou says, at the same time that Nagisa says, "Rin-chan!"

Rin's frown starts to slip, and when he sighs he's practically smiling. "Jeez, why're you trying to surprise me? It's not my birthday."

"I know," Kou says. "But I still thought it might be nice."

"Yeah, okay, you win," Rin says, chin back in his hand. His gaze sweeps over everyone, lingering nowhere, and he asks, "So, what's up then?"

Everyone else starts talking at once, while Haruka takes in what little of Rin's room he can see – namely, the closet set into the wall behind Rin's desk, the door slid shut. Everything painted white, and he's already run out of things to look at.

Rin looks sleepy, eyelids drooping in a way that makes his smile softer than usual while he listens to whatever the others tell him. Haruka feels a jolt, and looks away before Rin's eyes have the chance to find him staring. It isn't even surprising that he's anticipating awkwardness before anything happens. He'd tell himself to grow up if he could, or maybe he has and it hasn't worked. Rin is still Rin. And Haruka is a bad friend.

There's a disturbance from Rin's end of the call. Haruka looks back at the screen, where Rin's attention is off to the side, on some unseen person he's speaking to in English. He  _tsk_ s, starts to say something and is promptly pushed out of his chair.

"Hi Gou!" says the person who takes Rin's place, though he makes Kou's name sound like the English word 'go' – more of a mouthful than it should be, like something he's drooling. He has very white teeth, very wavy hair, very green eyes, and very deep dimples around his smile.

"Oh!" Kou says in surprise, and then in hesitant English: "Hi, Mark."

"Happy birthday!" Mark says loudly, leaning close enough that his voice crackles through the speakers.

Kou laughs. "Thank you," she says, more comfortably.

Mark – who must be Rin's roommate, Haruka decides – looks at the rest of them and says something that Haruka doesn't completely understand, though he catches the word  _friends_.

Rin's hand appears on the back of the chair, and he grumbles something to Mark, who gives a blinding grin and leaves both the chair and the screen, though not without one last spastic wave at Kou and the rest of them.

"God, what a pain," Rin says, once he's back in his seat. His hood has slipped off; his hair is a mess, seems barely contained by the lopsided ponytail it's tied into. The ends curl around the curve of his neck, aiming for his collarbone. "He's like Momo only…" He makes a vague motion with his hands. "Only more."

More noise off-screen. Rin rolls his eyes skyward. "No, I'm not talking about you," he calls out, still speaking Japanese. Mark's voice comes faintly, Rin answers back in English, and a few seconds later a door can be heard closing.

"Gou." Rin gives his sister a pain-stricken look, elbows clattering onto the desk, hands grabbing for his hair. "Stop being so nice to him."

"Why?" Kou sounds affronted. "He's really nice."

"That's what he  _wants_  you to think. He's really just a gross brat. I saw him picking his nose the other day."

"I'm sure you pick your nose sometimes too," Kou says, in the type of patient tone reserved for difficult conversation partners.

"Wha – I don't – what?!" Rin lets out a sardonic puff of air. "Gou, like I would."

Nagisa sniggers, and Rin mutters a dark, "You better be glad there's a screen between you and me."

"Okay, sorry I suggested something so preposterous," Kou says. Then, voice going warm, she asks, "How are you?"

"Feeling kind of insulted," Rin mutters, but he quickly drops the act. "Fine. Just had dinner. They had cake at the dining hall." He wrinkles his nose. "Figured I'd have a slice, special occasion and all. Made me nauseous."

"Oh, what kind!" Nagisa asks.

"Chocolate," Rin says, narrowing his eyes. "And you would've loved it."

Kou tells him about her plans for the day – Hanamura-san and another friend who have stayed local will be coming over for lunch, and there will be cake, and their mother will be home soon but Rin will probably have to go before then. Makoto talks about things, Nagisa talks about things. Haruka watches the fluctuations in Rin's expressions.

Rin laughs so much, so loudly, teeth always on display except for when he exaggerates frowns, and then his nose flares and his eyebrows twist up and he looks like he's in pain. Sometimes, when he's just listening to someone talk, everything just eases out. Lines and creases smoothing, muscles back to neutral. Just the lingering tiredness in and beneath his eyes, and Haruka wonders how busy he is, how much is swimming and how much is classes.

Makoto mentions running with Haruka in the mornings, and Rin's expression lifts in surprise. He looks at Haruka, eyes grabbing hold before Haruka can anticipate the move.

"Haru, you don't even like running," he says, grinning like he's digging for secrets. "What're you ramping up the personal training for?"

"Nothing," Haruka says, and he's glad to hear that he sounds defensive. That much is typical, though part of him is fighting against the desire to duck out of the camera's view entirely.  _It's just his face,_  he tells himself.  _You've already done this._ "I'm just running to run."

A lifted eyebrow is all he gets in response, before Rin's gaze slips away.

And here Rin is, Haruka realizes: all the expressions he's been wondering about behind the words, but now that he has them in front of him he finds them anything but telling. They discombobulate in his head, sharp grins and the weary glaze in Rin's eyes. Was it always like this, or is Rin's face just different, is he seeing it differently?

He blurts, "Your hair's long."

Rin's eyes snag onto his, Haruka finds that his mouth has glued itself shut. There is a breadth of silence that lasts a moment too long, and then Rin lets out a tentative laugh, hand running through his hair, catching in the hair tie.

"Yeah, it's getting kinda long I guess."

"It's getting  _too_  long," Kou says sternly. "You really should think about getting it cut."

Rin makes a  _ch_  sound. "It's not too long. What about yours?"

"That's a look over there, isn't it?" Makoto asks helpfully.

"You look kinda hobo-ish, Rin-chan."

"It's not a hobo look, jeez." Rin leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. "It's a beach look.  _Surfer_." He says the last part in English, a corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk, like he's just proven to them how cool he really is.

"Do you surf?" Haruka asks.

Rin's grin trips into a frown. "Hey. That's not even the point."

"Does it all fit in your swim cap?" Makoto asks.

Rin pins him with a warning look. "You. Don't start too."

There's a noise, vaguely discernible as knuckles on wood. Rin looks away, calls out; the reply is distant and muffled. Then Rin looks back at the screen and sighs, tiredness stealing back over all edges of his expression. "Hall meeting. I have to go."

_Wait,_  Haruka thinks.  _Wait, I was just starting to get things right._

"Haru," Rin says, and he breaks into a slow smile. It's not really subtle but something close to it – small but brash at the same time, knowing it's being seen but also meant for him alone. "Don't be so jealous of my hair."

For a second, Haruka is stunned. Then he realizes the challenge. "I'm not –"

But Rin's eyes have already slipped past.

"Gou, happy birthday. You guys, push her face into the cake or something for me."

Kou lets out a sound of indignation, but she's drowned out by Nagisa and Makoto's farewell. Things wrap up before Haruka can catch up, and then the connection is lost, call window dark, Rin's icon back to gray.

And just like that, things settle. It's the difference between drinking a carbonated drink fresh, and then again after it's been sitting out for a while. At first it burns, a frantic feeling in your throat, the want for more but also to make it stop. And then without the bubbles, without Rin, things are a lot more bearable but also a lot more flat, and Haruka is already wondering when boredom is going to settle in again.

"If  _any_  of you push my face into the cake…" Kou says, snapping her laptop shut, and Nagisa and Makoto give nervous laughs, and Haruka thinks,  _Not yet._

* * *

He has the feeling that they'll be staying through the afternoon, and sure enough, when Hanamura-san arrives they're still there. Makoto and Nagisa have somehow managed to convince Kou to start a trial of some online fantasy game, but all Kou cares about is outfitting her character, and when Hanamura-san joins them the progress goes from slow to slower. Next arrives a friend Haruka doesn't know well, shortly followed by Kou's mother with a cake and take-out.

Matsuoka-san joins them for lunch, sits right down on the floor with them and passes around boxes and plates and chopsticks, urges everyone to take more food, have some more, are you sure that's enough?

Haruka hasn't seen her in a while, but she looks much the same as she always has – her hair is clipped up in the back and she's wearing a business suit, and she looks a bit tired around the eyes, like she spent the morning working double-time so she could take the afternoon off, which she probably did. She has never subscribed to the type formality that's often shared between a parent and their children's friends, and she eats with them like she's among her own friends, but also like they're all her children who have come back to visit. "Our Makoto-kun must have found himself a girlfriend by now," she says at one point,which leaves Makoto red and spluttering with noodles hanging out of his mouth, and Kou hiding her face in her hands and uttering an embarrassed, mournful " _Mom!_ "

Matsuoka-san disappears into her home office after lunch, to get out of their hair and to do some more work. When Nagisa asks what usually comes next at Kou's parties, the girls share a look, and then the one whose name Haruka keeps forgetting – her hair is in two braids and her sweater is a deep navy, and tiers of bracelets tinkle together on her wrists – looks at them with a fox-like smile.

"We paint each others' nails," she says, and Haruka thinks of Rin's purple polish, thinks he knows exactly where this is going.

"Oooh, you want to paint ours, don't you?" Nagisa asks, sounding interested.

Makoto catches Haruka's eye, tilts his head in Kou's direction.  _Well, it's her birthday_  is what he means, so all Haruka can do is suck it up and let himself be lead outside – "So the fumes don't make you lightheaded," the girl with the bracelets tells him.

He can't tell if she's joking or not, but she and Hanamura-san team up to work on Nagisa and Makoto, who Haruka can hear making requests: "Can I have a flower on my thumb?" "Do you know how to do stripes?" "Do you know how to do a skull?" ("Why would I know how to do that?" Bracelet girl says to Nagisa in disbelief.)

He's sitting with Kou a few paces farther along the deck – and she was the one who led him away from the others, so he has a Feeling, feels like he's been having many of them these days. Kou isn't forthcoming, though, simply tells him to lay his hands flat on the deck and keep them still. He watches the others over her shoulder, huddled into a circle and immersed in whatever is being painted onto Makoto and Nagisa's fingernails.

"That feels weird," he says, when Kou lays a brush down against his thumbnail. "Why is it cold? And isn't it supposed to be colored?"

"It's a base coat," Kou explains, moving quickly to the next nail. "It helps the color go on more evenly, and keeps it on longer."

Haruka wrinkles his nose. "You don't have to do this step."

"Of course I do. What color do you want?"

"Just this is fine."

Kou laughs, has to lift the brush away from his hand so she doesn't paint the clear stuff all over his fingers. "Haruka-senpai! That's not allowed. You need a color."

She takes a small cluster of bottles from beside her and places them in front of Haruka's hands. "I have light pink. If you don't look closely it looks almost the same shade as your nails. Don't look so sad!"

"I don't look sad," Haruka says.

Kou looks like she's going to laugh again, so she ducks her head and finishes up with the base coat. Haruka watches silently, and one by one each of his nails turns slick and shiny. He blows on them when Kou tells him to blow on them, lets his expression droop into Utterly Displeased when she tells him he has nice nails.

"That's not a bad thing! It just means you aren't clueless about personal grooming, thank you for that. Don't – don't smell them!"

She snatches his hand away from his face, has him lay them back flat on the deck.

"Why does it smell so bad?" Haruka asks.

Kou shakes the bottle of pink polish, twists off the cap. "Because it's full of chemicals. Don't worry though."

Too late for that, but he can't help being impressed at how quickly Kou swipes the pink across his nails while still managing to stay inside the lines. The polish is a pale cotton candy color, and it makes the ends of his fingers look a little sickly, but from a purely aesthetic point of view he can appreciate that they're really well done. He knows if he tried he'd probably have the polish halfway to his knuckles. Hopefully Kou doesn't want him to do hers. Then again, maybe hopefully she does.

"I'm really glad you and my brother are talking again," Kou finally says. She makes it sound like a passing thought, like her attention is still foremost on his fingernails, but the brush is hovering over the last nail and her bangs are in the way of her expression. "I hate seeing him mope around, and I hate seeing you moping just as much."

Haruka doesn't know what to say, so Kou touches the brush down and ends up saying more, and the others are talking so loudly now that there's no chance of being overheard.

"Thanks for being patient with him, in your own way. I know he's too hard-headed and he's a pain and he can be so self-centered and he's really bad at telling when he's acting like a baby. So thanks for not giving up on him when he _is_ acting like a baby."

"He's my friend," Haruka says. "I wouldn't give up on him."

He can just make out Kou's mouth pull into a slight smile. "I know. Which is why I'm so glad. I'm glad he has good friends."

Done with his nails, she twists the cap back onto the bottle and sets it aside. She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out, settles her hands on top of Haruka's, fingers light against his wrists. Her head is still bowed, but she gives his wrists a squeeze. "Really. Thank you, Haruka-senpai. For being there for him."

Haruka can't tell her why he thinks she's gotten it wrong, that he hasn't done that much, hasn't done enough. "Kou…"

"Gou."

Haruka blinks, eyebrows drawing together. "What?"

"It's Gou," Kou says. She looks up at him, smiles suddenly and fully. "I've decided. It's going to be Gou now." She lets go of his hands, rummages all the bottles of polish together.

"Okay," Haruka says. "Why?

"New chapters and everything," Kou – Gou? – Gou (Kou?) says with a shrug. "Thanks, though. For being the only person who actually listened to me. That was really nice of you."

"It wasn't a big deal."

"Exactly," Kou says, and she gives a little laugh. "It wasn't. Now stay still, you need these to dry smoothly before I can do the top coat."

"Do we…do we really need to do another coat?"

"Haruka-senpai." She looks at him, eyes wide and insistent –  _It's my birthday._ "Trust me."

And Haruka sighs, and decides to trust her. For the sake of nice nails – purely aesthetic, because if he's going to have them, they might as well look like they were worth sitting through.

But mainly for the sake of giving thanks, because it's the only way he can think of to show how much he appreciates being appreciated by her, the only present he can think of to give besides getting her name right once more, which he thinks is going to take some work.

 


	10. Inspiration (Spring - part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making it to chapter 10 is a pretty big landmark for me, since I've never written this far into a fic or been so invested in a fic before, and I'm so excited to get here! I seriously have the best readers; I am so encouraged by your feedback, and inspired to make my fic even better chapter by chapter. Some of you guys comment regularly, and I look forward to everything you have to say and honestly love talking with you and love seeing you care about this story. And even if you just comment now and then, or just simply read the story and enjoy it, I am so immensely thankful. And I'm also SO grateful for the friends I've made in fandom that I'm pretty sure stemmed one way or another from me writing this fic - Karen, aka my first commenter here one ao3 just about a year ago, how our friendship has bloomed, I really appreciate you a lot!!; and rh crew on twitter that has so graciously welcomed me into their ranks, you guys are hilarious and passionate and wonderful and fill me with joy (Cloud your playlists are my go-to anytime I'm having a block); and really anyone and everyone who I've spoken with, no matter how little or much. Writing for you guys is the most rewarding thing. 
> 
> Heartfelt stuff out of the way, this is the chapter that when I was watching ES, episodes 11 and 12 were like a double-whammy of 'holy shit, but I've been planning that for my fic?!' Not detail-for-detail, but very similar themes. (Or, well, actually there was a pretty word-for-word match with what Rin told Haru in Australia and I FLIPPED OUT when that happened. See if you can spot it? I think the free! team should hire me for a season 3.) Anyway, here you go!

The first chip in the polish appears on Wednesday morning, which is four days later, which is impressive, Haruka thinks.

He notices it in the mirror while he's washing his face. There's a large sliver missing from his right index nail; the line is so clean it's like it's been sheared off, and he wonders what he could have done to have taken off so much. He can think of very little he's done that's really involved his hands, but maybe this is how nail polish works. Maybe bit by bit more will simply fall away, and he'll look down and find more patches of his real nails. Maybe he'll find flakes of cotton candy pink around the house, at the edges of rooms or at the borderlines between carpet and hardwood, or maybe they'll disappear into dust, tiny enough to be invisible and then one day vacuumed up for good.

After breakfast he takes the train into town, and then after swimming he takes it even farther. The sun hits the side of his face, all heat, the morning chill in the air cut away by the windowpane. There's a feeling of near-sleep in the compartment. Heads lolling on necks, shared lethargy that just makes every passenger more tired than they were getting on – and he watches them get on for a couple stops, closed-off looks to their faces, autopilot, and then he gets tired of seeing this. He stares out the window and watches buildings pass in an out-of-focus blur.

He jumps when his phone buzzes in his pocket, and his vision snaps back into place with dizzying quickness. He expects Rin because there's really no one else it would be, so he isn't surprised to find that he's right, though the message itself is unexpected.

_are you busy right now?_

Rin doesn't really ask anymore, he just talks. Haruka wonders what's going on, but is distracted by the name of his station being announced over the intercom. He shoulders his swimming bag, shifts to the edge of his seat, tucks his phone into his pocket. The train races through a crossing; he gets a quick glimpse of blinking red lights out the opposite window.

Then the wheels slow and the train slides into the station: platform and benches and overhangs, people waiting cross-armed and impatient or pushing themselves wearily off of posts. The trees are thick behind the platform, but over the tops Haruka can see the expanse of a vast grassy field and the smudges of people moving across it. Way off behind this rise the multi-story businesses, in layers like a staircase but far enough away that they look toy-sized – a cityscape that already gives off a busy feeling, and Haruka's determined to keep it in the distance.

The train stops, and he stands. Most of his compartment does as well, and he joins their silent shuffle toward the door. Once he's on the platform he takes his phone back out and sends:  _No._

_can i call you?_

The reply comes before Haruka can even take a step, like Rin had been waiting with it already typed out. Haruka knits his brows; if only Rin could see the expression.

_How?_ he sends, because he's pretty sure Rin would assume that his phone plan doesn't cover international calls – he doesn't even know his own phone plan, but he would be surprised if it dealt with anything fancier than texting.

He starts his way toward the platform's exit, has to sidestep a woman in business clothes running to catch the train before it leaves. She doesn't even appear to notice him, and her scarf whips out and gets him across the face – not painful, but disorienting all the same. And then his phone buzzes again, and he lifts it expecting to read Rin's newest reply, only to find the screen lit with an incoming call. His heart gives a startled  _thump,_ and he connects the line and brings the phone to his ear.

"Rin?"

"Hi," Rin says, voice fuzzy, like the connection isn't too strong. He carries on quickly: "Don't worry, this isn't a long-distance call. It's through the app, so it just uses data. Um, I don't know how much data you have, though…"

"I don't know either," Haruka says.

"Oh, um, I can just hang up if you want."

"No," Haruka says, so quickly he almost trips over the word. He feels another jolt in his chest, and another and another – lots of small, rapid-fire ones, and then he realizes that's just his heart racing like he's pulled himself out of the pool after a close meet. "It's okay. It's fine. Why did you call me?"

He's standing in the middle of the station, vaguely remembers he had a destination. The stairs are between a route display board and a vending machine, and he heads this way.

"Oh, well. Um."

"What?" Haruka says. He takes a right at the bottom of the stairs, starts along a shaded pathway. Through the tree trunks he can see some college-age kids kicking around a soccer ball, their shouts indistinct.

"I was just – I just wanted to see how you are," Rin says.

Haruka listens, hears nothing else – maybe just Rin breathing quietly, or maybe it's the background buzz from the connection. He imagines Rin leaning against his desk, one hand holding the phone in place, the other crossed nervously in front of himself, something fidgety going on with his feet probably.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Rin exhales, and the speaker is overwhelmed for a moment, transmits a wash of static noise. "I mean I wanted to ask if you're doing okay. You looked really tired. When I saw you."

A hot-cold feeling travels down Haruka's face. A talk. Please not a talk. "Oh. Um –"

"Sorry I'm saying this now," Rin says, and he's speaking in a rush again. "I know I saw you over the weekend but I've been busy and I just didn't know if this would be a good idea or when I could call or, yeah, sorry. I'm making excuses. Sorry."

"It's okay," Haruka says. He's stopped walking again, feels kind of like he wants to hide behind a tree, not that it would do him any good. "It's okay."

"So – um – shit – I mean, is everything okay?"

More than hide, Haruka wants to throw his phone into a tree. But Rin sounds nervous and sincere, so instead Haruka makes his way over to a bench, takes a seat and drops his bag to the ground.

"Everything's okay," he says.

"Why are you running again?"

Haruka tips his head back, shuts his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his nose, not because he's annoyed but because this has already drained so much out of him. There is something about Rin caring so much that feels very, very heavy, almost too heavy, something he isn't strong enough to hold up.

"To give myself something to do."

"You don't have anything to do?"

"My job starts in five days. The training. It's been a long month."

"Oh."

Rin goes quiet. Haruka wants to let it last – just have Rin at his ear but not pushing anything into it – but awkwardness lurks at the edges of everything. He wants to sigh, but doesn't want to have Rin worry about what it means.

"Did I really look that tired?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"You looked tired too."

Rin laughs, and the speaker almost fails again. "I'm taking five classes."

Haruka's eyes pop open. "Why?"

"Dunno," Rin says. "Wanna challenge myself, I guess. There's lots of cool classes to take, and I don't really mind all the studying. Um…" There's a heavy pause, and Haruka waits, sunlight glinting into his eyes through the spaces in the tree branches. "Um, actually, I'm trying to graduate in three years."

Haruka blinks up at the trees in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah," Rin says.

"Isn't that… Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of going overseas for the swimming?"

"Not really," Rin says. "Three years is a long time. This way…I guess I'm kind of giving myself incentive to get better faster. Get the most out of it while I can, you know?"

Haruka agrees: three years is a long time. It hasn't even been one and already talking to Rin feels like learning how to talk all over again. "Can you handle all of that?" he asks. "All those classes and swimming?"

"So far so good," Rin says. "Have some faith in me."

He's teasing, but Haruka feels something heavy in his stomach. Dawning realization, or dawning acceptance of what he's known. It's like they live in different worlds. Rin is always reaching, always doing, always moving ahead. Away.

"Rin."

"Hm?"

Haruka hesitates. The urge to clamp his mouth shut and not say anything is strong, and the dread at what will happen if he does talk swirls in the pit of his stomach – and that's the heavy thing, the festering thing, all the dark things he's gathered close while Rin's been out making his world brighter.

"Do you think I'm wasting myself?"

The silence is stifling. Haruka scrunches up his toes, resists the impulse to start tapping his heels against the ground.

"What?" Rin says quietly.

He could just let it drop. Say never mind and leave no room for argument, but then the pit would get heavier and who knows when the next time he'll acknowledge it will be. Somewhere along the line it's become so important to know what Rin thinks of him, and the thought of being looked down upon makes his skin crawl.

"You think I'm such a great swimmer. You said I could be better than anyone on your team. Do you think I'm wasting myself?"

Rin lets out a breath, kind of like a spilled laugh, unsettled. "Haru…"

"I'm serious," Haruka says sharply. He shuts his mouth; his teeth click together. The pathway is quiet, though; nobody has walked by yet and nobody is around. "I'm serious."

"If this is because of what I said over break –"

"You've said things a lot of times."  _Stop cutting him off,_  he berates himself. But the line is static, and dread steals in. "You do, don't you?"

"Haru!" Rin exclaims, so loudly that Haruka pulls the phone away from his ear. "Christ, this is your problem. You won't even let me figure out what to say before putting words into my mouth."

"But you've even said it before. That not doing more with my swimming is a waste. You think it. My parents think it. Everyone thinks it."

Rin lets out a long breath. "Haru, I'm not your parents. I'm not  _everyone_ , and I think you're wrong there anyway. Listen."

Haruka waits, and listens, and after a silence that feels long but probably isn't Rin keeps talking.

"I say things, okay?" Rin says. "I say stupid, insensitive things. I may wish things from you, but that's just me being, I dunno. Idealistic? Hopeful? A fan?" His laugh is strained. "That sounds so stupid, but you know I've always been crazy about your swimming. I've been since I was a kid. I've always admired it. I've…Haru, I've always admired you. I've always admired what you can do."

Haruka's eyes are on his shoes, scuffed with dirt. His head is full and loud, but he can't find anything to say. His just feels mistrust, but also a huge urge to trust implicitly in what Rin is saying.

"I can't help that I want more from you," Rin says. "But that's just instinctual. That's just me being me. But more than that, I just want you to be happy. I want you to do what's right for you. I just…get carried away with what I want for me more than with what I want for you sometimes. But what I want for you is more important."

Haruka licks his lips; his mouth is dry. "What does that mean?"

"I admire  _you._  For just doing what you do, and doing it your way, and being okay with that. You've always seemed so sure of yourself, like you'd never let anything faze you, like you'd never let anyone get you to do something you don't want to. I've had to deal with it and it's annoying as shit, but I still admire it more than I've ever told you."

Haruka wants to laugh – in what? Scorn? Helplessness? How wonderful it would be to actually be all of those things, to be that self-assured. "You really think I'm like that?" he says.

"Haru, I'm serious. I'm serious!"

Rin's voice cracks, and Haruka finally hears the urgency there. He sits bolt upright, brings his other hand over the phone. His heart pounds into his windpipe, and he's imagining Rin in the gazebo with his head clutched in his hands.

"Okay. I believe you. Sorry."

Rin lets out a squeaky sound. Frustration or disbelief or the precursor to an  _I give up._ Haruka thinks they'd all be warranted, but instead Rin says: "Jesus, Haru. I don't know how you don't get it yet, but I care about you. About  _you_ , okay? Just because I don't get you all the time doesn't mean I don't care. Shit. You don't even – you don't even know."

"I know you do," Haruka says.

"You don't know how much," Rin says, and Haruka shuts his mouth.

He doesn't know, except he thinks it's a lot, can feel in the way Rin speaks to him that it's a lot, and he cannot imagine why. And Rin probably knows this, which is worse. He just hopes Rin knows that the caring goes both ways.

"A long time ago," Haruka says, "back before we were friends again, and you told me I was going to swim for you, I didn't want to." He doesn't know where the words are coming from, but he doesn't second-guess them. "But I did at the same time. I wanted to swim for you so you would remember why you were swimming in the first place."

Silence, and then Rin says tentatively, "You did. You helped me remember."

"And you did too. Swimming with you helped me remember what I was swimming for. Who I was swimming for. So I wanted to keep swimming for you, because I was swimming for myself also."

"Okay," Rin says. "So what are you saying?"

"Scouting… I hated it. I hated that feeling. Nothing felt right. They were – they just wanted the numbers I could put on the score board. I felt like I had no value. I know you don't understand but that's what it felt like to me. I was swimming for nothing."

"Haru, I  _respect_  that. You're allowed to feel like that. You don't have to defend that to me."

"But that's not –" Haruka presses his palm to his forehead, feels all his thoughts jumbling together, making the words so hard to catch and put in order. "I didn't like swimming like that, but I didn't not like swimming. It was confusing. It's confusing."

"Okay."

"I don't know everything. I don't feel sure of everything."

"That's okay. That's normal."

Haruka swallows. His throat feels blocked; he's never found speaking so frightening. What is it about saying things that feels like you're opening yourself up? Making yourself vulnerable, not only to other people but to yourself, because sometimes you say words you didn't even know you had, and you hear things in them you didn't even know you felt. You could knock yourself over with your own words, he thinks, tear yourself apart with them.

"But. Um. Sometimes." His tongue is heavy, and Rin waits all too silently. "Sometimes I wish we could still swim together." He wonders if Rin will get it. If he can say  _I miss you_  in other words and Rin will understand. "I…I still want to swim for you."

"You don't have to swim with me to swim for me," Rin says quietly. "You don't even have to swim for me. If you swim that's enough."

Haruka presses his lips together, lets out a breath through his nose. "I want to swim with you."

He wonders if it means he's losing his mind, that he's sure he can hear Rin slowly start to smile. Maybe it's just his mind supplying him with what he wants to happen, anything to alleviate the tight-grip feeling in his chest.

"I want to swim with you, too," Rin says, soft and warm and everything that Haruka finds scary about words. "When I come back for break," Rin says, "let's swim together. I'll race you."

"You'll beat me."

"I know," Rin says, and he laughs. "I've been improving my free."

"Okay," Haruka says. He feels numb, feels himself grinning. "Let's race."

"You're on," Rin says.

They fall quiet, and Haruka's smile starts to slip. An elderly man walks past, his cane clunking dully against the path. The sound breaks something, reminds Haruka that he's far from home with places to go.

"I should go," he says. "I have something to do."

"Okay. Yeah, same."

"Okay." Haruka hesitates, can't think of anything more fitting than: "Bye."

"Haru, wait!" Rin says quickly, and Haruka scrambles to bring the phone back to his ear. "Just…thanks for talking to me."

For a moment Haruka can't find words. Does Rin mean just now? Or in general? He clears his throat, ducks his head. "You too. Thanks."

He lets Rin hang up first, and then the line goes completely dead. He waits until the man is far ahead, and then he stands, shrugs his swim bag over his shoulder, and sets off once again. His heart is still racing.

* * *

The first training day is on Monday afternoon, and doesn't involve any actual training. It's an orientation, so what it does involve is more paperwork, and when Haruka arrives Kaji-san is at the front desk and points him down the hall and around the corner to room 5B, a small conference chamber with its doors open wide.

The room smells like recently-washed carpeting, and there are maybe twenty or so people, all young, milling around between rows of tables. Some are in casual clothes and some are in school uniforms; some talk amongst themselves, but most of them are trying to look busy examining their surroundings and avoiding eye contact, the way people in a room full of strangers do.

Then, over everyone's head, Haruka spots a very tall figure at the back of the room, standing against the windows. Hair pulled back into a ponytail, brooding expression and hunched shoulders. Nagano, or something. The breaststroke guy. He makes his way over just as a supervisor shuts the doors and calls for everyone's attention.

The other two from the trial are at the back wall too – backstroke guy, one shoulder drooping under the weight of a backpack that looks like it's about to split apart at the seams; and butterfly girl, hair tied into two short pigtails low on her head and jeans bleached and heavily torn at the knees. They both nod at Haruka, and backstroke guy smiles brightly. Breaststroke guy doesn't pay him any notice.

Roll-call reminds him of their names. Amano Reiji, breaststroke; Chiburi Sakura, butterfly; Shimamura Kota, backstroke. They form a list in his head, like categories, and he knows if he's going to be working with them he's going to have to be less detached.

"Ready for a long haul?" Chiburi mutters under her breath while the supervisor continues calling out names.

"Don't worry guys, I have snacks," Shimamura whispers back loudly, patting the front pocket of his backpack, which makes a crackling sound.

There are three groups in the room – swim lessons, basketball camp, and soccer camp – but before they're split up and sent off to watch their own orientations, they all take a seat to get the paperwork out of the way. Shimamura rockets into a chair beside Chiburi, and Haruka sits between him and Amano.

"Crap," Chiburi says, when the supervisor places a stack of paperwork in front of her. "I forgot a pen."

Shimamura whips his backpack onto the desk – it lands with an immense  _thunk_  inches from Haruka's hand. "Wanna borrow a pen, Chiburi-san?" he asks eagerly.

"Please don't call me that," Chiburi says.

"Chiburi…chan? No? Um, Sakura…san? Chan?"

"Definitely not that," Chiburi says, but she grins. "Use Zaki instead and I'll be happy to use your pen, though."

Haruka's head swivels around at that, and Chiburi frowns around Shimamura at him.

"What?"

"Did you ever swim at the Iwatobi Swim Club?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

"No. I've always swam in Fube. Why, you know another Zaki?"

_You could say so,_  Haruka thinks, though he doesn't remember too much about her anymore. Just an air of kindness, buoyancy, like a sunny day, like the fluffy edges of summer clouds. And _'Zaki-chan'_  said in Makoto's voice, way back when they were kids and they sounded like they had swallowed helium balloons. Yazaki Aki and her white scarf.

He doesn't get to say anything, because the supervisor asks if they've all got their papers in front of them, and there is a general murmur of affirmation.

Amano nudges him. "Does he have another pen?" he asks Haruka in an undertone. He jerks his chin in Shimamura's direction.

Haruka turns and asks. Shimamura digs out another pen, which Haruka passes along.

"Nice nails," Amano tells him, eyes on the front of the room as he takes the pen.

Haruka curls his fingers, hiding the jagged splotches of polish still left behind. He gives Amano a mistrustful look, but it goes unnoticed. "My friend made me do it."

"Girls like to do that," Amano says, and was that mean to sound understanding? It's hard to tell, and now he's writing his name onto the top of his form like he hadn't said anything at all.

An hour and a half later, the lights go back on in room 5B. The supervisor shuts off the TV and dismisses them, and everyone stretches their legs out before rising from their seats and drifting out the door. The center is quieter, the halls emptier; many of the office spaces Haruka passes by are dark.

"Hey, Nanase!"

The shout startles him. He turns around, sees Chiburi at the end of the hall by the bathrooms with Amano, who's holding Shimamura's backpack. "Wanna come eat with the three of us? There's a place a couple blocks away we're gonna check out."

She looks expectant, Amano looks impassive. Haruka's surprised by the invitation, and he hesitates for a moment before raising his voice loud enough to call back, "Sorry. I have plans already."

"That's fine," Chiburi says. She lifts a hand. "See you Thursday."

* * *

And he does, when their trainee group meets at the poolside for the first of four long days of lifeguard training. They're immediately sent into the water for a multi-stage physical test that's meant to weed out any weak links. By the time Haruka has retrieved a twenty pound weight from the bottom of the deep end and is swimming it to the edge of the pool, his limbs feel weak and rubbery. He still manages to hoist the weight and then himself out of the pool and complete the chest compressions on the dummy lying nearby, while the whistle shrieks to the pace he has to keep.

"Good job," Shimamura says, towel over his head and an exhausted smile on his face when Haruka flops onto the bleachers beside him. He holds out a water bottle, which Haruka takes gratefully.

The whistle blows, and they watch another trainee begin stage three from the shallow end. Chiburi is next in line, standing with her ankles in the water on the top step, and Amano is right behind her. So far, neither of them has had any trouble with the test. Performance-wise, Haruka ranks himself somewhere around the middle, just above Shimamura, who had almost failed to heave his weight out of the pool – it's harder than it looks with nothing but water beneath your feet.

In the end, everyone passes, which makes them a group of seven. Two burly guys and a tall, willowy girl round them out, and these three stick together like they've met before. Haruka thinks of them as the 'other group', and then realizes he's stuck himself with Chiburi, Amano, and Shimamura by default.

Nobody asks him to join them for dinner this time, but when they're dismissed they go in different directions anyway – Shimamura off through the parking lot towards the center of town, and Amano and Chiburi together toward the station. They end up on the east-bound platform and Haruka pretends not to notice them across the way; not that he has to try, because they're so wrapped up in their conversation – Amano leaning casually against a lamp post with his arms crossed while Chiburi gestures this way and that in front of him – that they don't notice him at all.

Each day, the sessions begin with laps and training exercises, and then go on to include CPR and first aid, and various lessons on saves that the trainees practice on each other. And there are hours and hours of instructional videos in room 5B, whose clean-carpet smell has become so familiar that Haruka doesn't notice it by the third video. Nobody really enjoys watching the videos, though everyone enjoys giving their bodies a rest. Shimamura arrives on the second day smelling of menthol and complaining about sore muscles, and tries to convince them all to take some of the paste from the tin he stores in his backpack.

"You're just gonna have to wash it off before you get in the pool," Chiburi says, tapping the pen she borrowed several days ago against the desk. "Hey, what else you got in that backpack anyway?"

The longest sessions take place over the weekend, and the only time they're allowed to leave the rec center is the forty minute lunch break. Haruka and Shimamura lean against one railing outside the front doors and Amano and Chiburi lean against the opposite, and they talk when there aren't people passing through.

Haruka learns more about them over these lunches, like that Chiburi – "Seriously, just call me Zaki, please," she tells him when he flubs up – is a second-year at university; or would be, like him, except she dropped out after her first year, which didn't sit well with her parents.

"I mean, all I want is to swim," she says, with a moody lift of her shoulders. More to the story is implied – like: isn't she swimming now? and what about that schedule? – but she isn't forthcoming.

Shimamura is a university first-year, an honors student, and vice-president of his school's break dancing club.

"How the hell do you do all that and plan to do this too?" Chiburi says through a mouthful of rice, stabbing her chopsticks in his direction.

"I'm a man of many talents, Zaki-chan," Shimamura says. He winks, tries to twirl his chopsticks. They fall to the ground and roll down the steps.

Chiburi cringes. "I changed my mind. Just Zaki, please."

Haruka's already finished his lunch, so he gives his chopsticks to Shimamura, who beams at him. Shimamura does that a lot, beaming at him. Haruka remembers what he said when they first met, about wanting to swim with him, and hopes there isn't some kind of low-key hero worship going on, like what Rin had to deal with with Nitori once upon a time.

Amano is quiet, but time passes and he doesn't get any more talkative, so Haruka gets used to it. Chiburi and Shimamura start and maintain conversations; Haruka and Amano sometimes manage to keep them going, and sometimes end them on accident.

In all, Haruka likes these people, and he thinks they like him enough, and when he calls Chiburi "Chibu – ah – Zaki" she just raises her eyebrows as if to say,  _I like that you're trying, but try a little harder._

And then, when they're almost done with lunch on Sunday and Amano leans into Chiburi and asks, "Zaki-chan, are you going to eat your fried egg?" Haruka is as dumbfounded as Shimamura, who chokes on a carrot stick and says, through Haruka slapping him on the back and the tears streaming down his face, " _What_  did you just call her?"

Amano's cheeks get pink, and Chiburi sighs and scoops her fried egg into his bento box, but she presses her lips together like she's trying to hold back a smile.

Shimamura looks crushed, and he turns to Haruka and says, "Nanase-chan, are you going to eat your fried egg?"

"I don't have – hey, don't call me  _chan_."

Once the lights are brought back on in room 5B for the last time, and the television is turned off for good, Chiburi asks him again if he wants to join them for dinner. This time he doesn't hesitate, and as the four of them head through the parking lot together he wonders when they'll notice how much he likes to eat mackerel.

* * *

The next morning, on the train ride home after swimming with Hiro, he decides to take his phone out to see if Rin has texted him yet. And then he realizes Rin didn't text him yesterday. Or the day before that, or the day before that. Since lifeguard training began, he thinks.

With a sinking feeling, he remembers the instructor asking them to turn off their phones the first day. He'd stowed his in his swim bag, and had been too exhausted to remember it until now.

He expects texts – maybe not a lot, but some, maybe one per day. He's ready to give explanations –  _Sorry, I forgot about my phone. Sorry, I've been busy. Sorry, I'm not ignoring you._ But instead there's nothing.

He stares uneasily at his phone, but is the unease because Rin's been so quiet, or is it because he wants to text Rin but thinks he'll sound stupid no matter what he says? It can't be that hard; Rin texts him all the time, about mundane things, about funny things, about anything.

But it _is_ hard. Trying to find the right balance of relaxed, but worried, but not  _actually_  worried, just checking in, just casual, just friends. Just whatever they are. Just missing Rin, but not too obviously, and kind of on edge about missing him, because things are really serious between them in a way he doesn't have an explanation for, and everything's so in the air and so deceptively simple at the same time, and they text every day but it's Rin who texts him first, and when it's anything beyond talking through a keyboard Haruka feels like he's swallowed a second heart.

It takes the entire train ride, and several deletions and restarts, but he finally sends:  _Hi. Are you busy?_ and still feels like smacking his face against the window. He hides his phone deep in his swim bag, tries to force it out of his mind on the walk home. He drops the bag at the front door and doesn't go back to dig out his phone until after lunch. There's no reply, and wishes he hadn't looked.

But on his way up the stairs his phone buzzes, and Rin's answer is there, followed by a second, and then a third.

_yeah sorry i had two exams last week and i have a paper due tomorrow ive been working on all weekend_

_its still sunday here_

_sorry_

Haruka's thumbs hover over the keyboard. Now there is pressure to reply quickly, but he waits until he's in his room before sending back,  _It's okay, I was just wondering._  He plugs his phone into the charger, waits.

_how's training?_ Rin asks him.

_Hard. We had four days of lifeguard training. I think the rest will be easier._

_still tired then?_

_What about you?_

_haha yeah ok i am_

Haruka sits on the edge of his bed, wondering what mundane thing he could talk about, though it turns out there's no need.

_i do have to go though. gotta finish this tonight cause i have class all day tomorrow_

_That's okay. Good luck with your paper._

_thanks, you too_

_with training_

Haruka smiles, sets his phone on the headboard. He imagines a Rin who's tired and harried, books piled around him, eyes glassy with fatigue, but a Rin who's well, and that's all he wanted to find out.

* * *

He heads over to Makoto's later in the afternoon, with a bag full of paints that has been sitting in the hall for over a week. He hears a stampede when he rings the doorbell, and a very overwhelmed-looking Makoto opens the door.

"They've been waiting," is all Makoto can say, before Ren and Ran push him aside and grab for Haruka.

"We washed all the rocks, Haru-chan," Ren says. "We washed them over the weekend. They're in the bucket now, all dry."

"And we set up the backyard," Ran says. "We laid out all the newspapers and got out the brushes and water and everything."

They pull Haruka through the house, and leave him out back to open the paint bottles while they dash upstairs to change out of their school clothes. Makoto comes out with a book in his arms, settles down by the door.

"Are you studying?" Haruka asks.

"Just a little," Makoto says with a smile. "I'll paint too, don't worry."

The twins come running back out, smocks tied over frayed old clothes that already have stains on them.

"These are supposed to last a long time, right?" Ren asks, newspaper crackling as he sits down to inspect the paints.

"That's what the clerk at the store told me," Haruka says.

"Hmm," Ran says. She sits beside her brother, pulls the orange paint bottle toward her and takes a brush out of the pile. "Okay, I hope so."

They take rocks out of the bucket and paint them one by one, and set them at the end of the patio to dry. It's peaceful – just the crinkling of the newspaper and of Makoto flipping through his textbook, the sound of birds, the occasional drone of a plane going by overhead. Ren fidgets a lot as he works, ends up on his stomach, on his side, sitting completely turned around with is back to them. Ran sits still, and by his fifth rock Haruka notices her watching him.

"What?" he says.

"How do you get it to look so nice?" she says, looking at his rock in admiration. Her own is blank, and her paintbrush dries on top of the newspaper.

"It depends on the brush," Haruka says. "And how you mix the colors. And other things, probably." He never starts out with an idea in mind, just dips brushes into colors and figures out along the way. This one has ended up with swirls of blue and white – clouds against a gray sky.

"It's so pretty," Ran sighs.

"You should paint some more," Haruka says. "Ren and I can't do all of them."

Ran looks unhappily down at her rock. "But I'm so bad at it."

"You're not bad. I still have the two you gave to me. They're on my kitchen counter."

"Yeah, but you're just being nice."

"No I'm not."

"Yeah you are."

"No I'm not."

" _Yeah,_  you –"

"No I'm not."

"Haru-chan! God, stop it!" Ran laughs, then huffs. "Okay, fine. Give me something to draw."

"A boat."

"A boat? Haru-chan, are you serious?"

"Here's mine," Makoto cuts in, shuffling forward to place his rock between Haruka and Ran. There's a yellow flower, and an orange circle that's maybe the sun, and some purple stars, with blue painted messily between.

"Wow," Ran says. "That's so amateur."

"Well then," Makoto says cheerfully, "show me that you can do better."

That gets Ran painting, and when Ren leans over to see what Makoto painted, the twins snicker together. Makoto just shrugs at Haruka, gets to his feet and stretches his arms over his head.

"How's studying?" Haruka asks him.

"Tedious and necessary?" Makoto says. "How's training?"

"The same. I like it, though. I like being busy."

"Who are you, and what have you done with Nanase Haruka?" Makoto says, grinning wide.

Haruka snorts. "I don't know."

"Want to run?"

They leave the twins, who are now immersed in trying to out-paint each other, and Makoto's textbook, which Haruka notices is open to a page that looks like it's filled less with type than with colorful images.

"Oh yeah," Haruka says, when they're heading out the front door. "There's a girl called Zaki at work."

"No way, she's not – ?!"

"No, she's not. Her name's Chiburi Sakura. I'm bad at calling her Zaki. It feels kind of weird."

"How are you doing with Gou-chan?"

They leave the yard; Haruka shuts the gate after them. "That's different. But I haven't talked to her since then, so I don't know. I'll probably mess it up. Do you still have any polish left?"

"No. I had a happy face on this finger for the longest time." Makoto holds up a pinky. "But it's gone now." He starts laughing, a jumpy sound as they head down the stairs. "Nagisa was trying to keep his from chipping off, so he wore band-aids over all his fingernails for two days and told anyone who asked that he'd burned all his fingers trying to take a tray of pizza out of the oven. Everyone believed him! The polish didn't last, though."

After their run, they stop by the store with Mrs. Tachibana's grocery list and some money she gave them before they left. Makoto carries home the huge sack of rice, and Haruka carries the bags full of everything else. He side-eyes Makoto's efforts to keep the sack from falling out of his arms.

"You could have gotten a smaller one."

"But we had enough money for this one, and we go through it so fast," Makoto says, already sounding regretful, and going bow-legged as he hoists the bag back up.

Haruka waits until Makoto's finally gotten a secure hold on the rice, which takes a little while, maybe three minutes of walking along the oceanfront and staring at the colors on the water and wondering if he wants to say anything at all. He decides he does, or that he might as well just to get it off his mind, so when he doesn't hear the sounds of struggle anymore he looks back over.

"Makoto. What aren't you telling me?"

Makoto meets his eyes, and the confusion there quickly disappears.

"I've been found out, huh?" Makoto says. He looks away, seems to be looking for words. They walk a bit farther, and then he says, "It's not that I've been hiding anything. I just wanted to wait until things were set in stone before I said anything, just in case. But I guess things are pretty set now…so I guess I can tell you."

Haruka waits, and Makoto glances back at him. And now he does look guilty, or maybe just apologetic, and Haruka feels suddenly too tired to try to arm himself, or to even bother regretting asking in the first place.

"Well, I'm gonna be leaving," Makoto says, with a pasted on smile that Haruka knows is meant to act as a balm but just feels traitorous.

"What do you mean?" Haruka asks. His footsteps are heavier, a dull  _thunk, thunk_  he feels echoing through him.

Makoto looks away again. "I'm going abroad in the fall. For a few months, to study. That's why I've been working so hard. You have to have top marks to qualify, because the school doesn't have the money to send lots of people."

It's not as bad as Haruka had expected; it's better than he had dared to hope in those few seconds where  _leaving_  meant anything in the world. A few months isn't three years, isn't like teeth being pulled. But Makoto not being just next door is still a definite something being uprooted; he already feels a vague, nervous discomfort.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"England," Makoto says, with a little up-hitch in his voice, a blip of enthusiasm that was either unconscious or that he'd been trying to hold back. "I never really expected to want to go there, but somehow…well, this ended up happening."

Haruka remembers the book on the patio, with pictures more than words. "You've been studying English."

Makoto shrugs, looks a little embarrassed. "I figured I should try to get a bit better before I go, so I can enjoy the experience more. Um, I really am sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I just didn't want to jinx it, I think."

"You're really excited," Haruka observes, watching the smile bloom on Makoto's face, the way it vanishes the tiredness in his eyes. And so now Makoto's world is expanding too, he thinks. He feels like he's on an island by comparison, stranded somewhere so small.

"I really am." Makoto says. He squints up at the houses in the hills above them. "I don't know how to say this so it doesn't sound bad, but sometimes I'm kind of tired of being here? It's so nice, and so the same. I'm used to everything; there's nothing new. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I was being too safe, waiting around here for some bright light to come along and show me the way, instead of just  _going_  somewhere. Maybe I should've left Iwatobi sooner."

"And me?"

Makoto gives him pained look. "I don't mean leaving you, and you know that."

"No. I mean, do you think I'm being too safe?"

"I don't know, Haru. You're the only one that can really know. Of course I wonder. Especially these past couple months, seeing you so unhappy again. But I believe in you. I believe you know how to make the right decisions, or what you felt were right for you at the time."

"But what if they aren't right anymore?"

"Then do something about it."

"But I can't just go back a few steps and redo things."

"No, you can't!" Makoto says, and there's frustration there that Haruka has never heard before. Makoto gives him a hard look, insistent and apologetic all at once. "But you can keep going forward. That's all I can tell you. What's done is done."

Haruka looks away; he knows Makoto's right. And he doesn't want to go back anywhere. There are things he'd rather not relive. They start up the stairs in a heavier silence than any they've shared in recent memory.

"Haru… I don't think you have to know what you're doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going somewhere I can barely speak the language. Who ever knows what they're doing? I don't think it's ever that clear-cut."

"Change…is scary," Haruka says. His voice shrinks at the end, holds tight to his throat like it doesn't want to leave. He forces a cough, feels his face go red.

"Yeah," Makoto says. Haruka can feel him staring, so he looks over. Makoto smiles at him, says brightly, "And exciting?"

Haruka thinks about training, about friends he's making slowly, thinks ahead to a summer of work and obligations and people depending on him, some semblance of adulthood taking form. "Maybe."

But exciting doesn't feel like the right word. There's an entire world of changes opening up in front of him, and he's just toeing the line. Because if he wants to step over it, then he'll have to let change be everything, all that happens to him. Things won't be the same anymore. Things already are beyond anything he'd imagined while he was back in high school, and it's the process of not knowing what things are changing into that scares him. Because there's no guarantee that things will be better than they are now.

There's no guarantee that he and Rin will get somewhere better, and it's already hard enough to find his footing when he's just dealing with himself alone.

"When are you leaving?" he asks.

"Not until the end of summer," Makoto says. He hoists the sack up against his shoulder so he can open the front gate, and they make their way through to the house. "I still have to keep my grades up. Enroll for my classes abroad. Figure out where I'm going to live. See if I can get any more scholarships. Um, if I need help with anything, or just want an opinion on anything, is it okay if I ask you?"

"Of course you can."

Makoto smiles. "Thanks."

Haruka follows him inside, into organized clutter and the noise of the twins bouncing around the kitchen, up to Makoto's room where books and papers lie everywhere, and then later to the crowded dinner table where he feels more than anywhere else that he's part of a family. He tries not to think about what it will be like when the space Makoto occupies is empty.

 


	11. Momentum (Summer - part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter turned into a 22 page monster, and I'm just going to lie down for ten years to recover. On a serious note, I'm not going by the canon for Sousuke's story; it's up to you whether he ever had his shoulder injury, but if he did, he was a lot more intelligent about dealing with it, so that's about all I'll say on that topic. More importantly, now that I'm getting pretty far into this story, I'm at the point where I've already looked back over some of the previous chapters and found an inconsistency I had to correct. Basically, a drawback of posting a story chapter by chapter is that if my ideas change, there's already so much that's been published, and I'd like to be able to catch things I've contradicted in one way or another, but I know I probably won't remember or catch them all. So if you notice any inconsistencies, please don't hesitate to bring them to my attention (be nice about it though, I'm honestly low-key stressing about this!) because I'd like to go back and smooth anything over that's formed a wrinkle. You're welcome to be my editors in that sense, I guess, since I'm literally the only person that sees this story before it gets posted. Okay, that's that, enjoy the chapter!

The first lesson comes too fast – ironic, because in April Haruka wasn't sure the end of May would ever arrive. But it's here now, and the pool is full of toddlers and their parents, the first lesson of the morning coming to a close. Every now and then, a childish shriek of delight rips through the general drone of a full pool room, ricocheted and amplified by the high ceiling.

"God, I'm nervous," Zaki says out of the corner of her mouth. "They're just kids, but jeez, I'm nervous. Are you nervous? God, why am I so nervous?"

Haruka glances over, sees her drumming her fingers against her elbows. The two of them stand between the entrance to the men's locker room and a rack of bright yellow kickboards, as though they want to blend into the wall and go unseen. The bleachers are full of prospective students; Haruka has tried not to look that way too much.

"Aren't you early?" he says.

Zaki starts one shift after he does, and he'd rather point this out than admit that her jitteriness is wearing off on him. The brickwork is hard against his shoulder blades, but he's worried that if he starts shifting he won't be able to stop.

"Gotta see what it's like," Zaki says, with a restless grin. "Gotta prepare myself." She sounds like she's preparing for a battle.

The locker room door opens, and Amano comes out looking a little harried, probably because Shimamura practically bounces through the door behind him.

"Hey! So, you guys ready?" Shimamura says, rounding immediately on Haruka and Zaki. "Don't be nervous. Everything will go great."

"Calm down, Mister Big-Shot," Zaki says, words slow, doing an impressive job of hiding the nerves Haruka had just seen. "Two lessons in and you're already an expert?"

Shimamura and Amano work Friday and Saturday, whereas Haruka and Zaki work Saturday and Sunday. Two lessons per day, five students per class, so twenty kids Haruka has to teach to swim, or swim better. He agrees with Zaki: they're just kids, but jeez, he's nervous.

"Well, maybe not an expert," Shimamura says, leaning a shoulder against the wall next to Zaki. "But they went pretty well, huh, Amano?"

"They went well," Amano says, looking at the space between Shimamura and Zaki's shoulders mistrustfully.

"Yeah, well, looks like you guys have to go," Zaki says, shooing them all away from her.

The pool is emptying, and Satou stands near the bleachers with a clipboard, his dreadlocks pulled back with a headband. He waves them over when he sees them looking his way.

"Don't be nervous," Amano says to Zaki before they leave. Like most things, it's hard to tell if he's being sincere or sarcastic. Zaki just shoos him away more vigorously.

Haruka's heart is definitely beating faster when he's standing in front of the rows of parents and their restless children. Satou reads off the groupings and before Haruka's really aware of what's going on, he's sitting in a circle with five little kids at the side of the pool. The youngest is four and the oldest is six, and they all look at him with eyes round in anticipation. There are probably countless ways he could start things off, but he thinks the most relevant is:

"Do you like to swim?"

It's a relief when they break into grins and a resounding chorus of "Yeah!"

"So can we go in now?" the six year old girl asks, leaning forward over her crossed legs. The others' heads bob, enthusiasm all around, a rainbow of goggle lenses on their foreheads and a rainbow of swim caps over their hair.

Heartened, Haruka goes over introductions, and then the pool rules ("What do we have to do when we're outside the pool?" "Walk!" they all cheer. "How do we get into the pool?" "The steps!") and then he lets them flock to the rack to collect their kickboards.

"So far so good?" Zaki says, arms crossed, still standing where they left her. She's almost smiling; there's a tinge of laughter to her voice.

"So far," Haruka says, and then he has his group file away so Amano's bunch of kids can hone in on the kickboard rack.

The water has a balancing effect on him – the moment his foot touches the first step, he already feels more focused. Three of his group let out little squeaks of "It's cold!" and clutch their kickboards close as they tiptoe down the steps; the other two have already hopped down the stairs and are urging the rest on.

_It's just swimming_ , Haruka thinks, facing his group once they're all lined up against the wall, the water up to almost their shoulders. They can't keep still, brimming with little kid energy that reaches Haruka through the water, the first inklings of  _fun_.

Teaching swimming and learning swimming – it's all just swimming, Haruka realizes. And he's never had trouble just swimming before, so why should he now?

* * *

"I'm  _starving_ ," Shimamura moans, a little over two hours later.

The smell of chlorine has travelled into the hallway, probably from all the people who have carried it with them through the changing rooms. Haruka knows how persistently it clings, even after a shower. The four of them likely carry it with them, too.

"You shouldn't have waited for us," Amano says, pulling his still-damp hair into some sort of knot on his head.

Shimamura looks at him like he's said something mildly hurtful. "Nanase and I wanted to go to lunch with you guys."

Haruka hadn't actually said anything of the sort, he just hadn't argued against the suggestion, and from the look Amano gives him over Shimamura's head – an unimpressed blankness that Haruka knows perfectly well how to school onto his own face – he knows Amano isn't fooled.

Zaki doesn't seem to care either way, and says from Haruka's left, "Well, we're getting meat."

When they turn the corner and the front doors come into view, though, Haruka spots three very familiar people milling around the railings outside. Nagisa is the first to notice him, and calls out something that doesn't travel through the glass.

"Oh, hey, whose friends are those?" Zaki says.

Makoto and Kou have broken off their conversation and wave. Kou has a large wicker basket hanging from the crook of her arm.

"Mine," Haruka says.

Once they're through the door, Nagisa zooms over and introduces himself to everyone, and renders Amano speechless by calling him Reiji-chan ("I'd call you Rei-chan, but I already have a friend named Rei-chan, so it looks like you'll have to settle for Reiji-chan, okay Reiji-chan?") Even Shimamura can only get out a surprised "Oh, okay, yeah," when Nagisa asks to call him Kota-chan. Zaki is the only one who takes everything in stride, grinning from ear to ear at the other two's reactions ("So do I call you Nagi-chan, or…?" she even asks Nagisa, who is delighted by the idea.)

"What are you doing here?" Haruka asks Nagisa a bit helplessly.

Kou comes to the rescue, nudging Nagisa over with her hip and a bit of a forced laugh. She holds up the basket. "Well, we wanted to surprise you, and I figured you'd probably want to eat. Um, I didn't make enough for everyone, though," she says, looking at Haruka's coworkers.

"Don't worry about it," Zaki says. She jams her elbows into Amano and Shimamura's sides. "Me and Reiji-chan and Kota-chan were gonna go find a place to eat anyway. We'll let you guys do your thing. See ya, Nanase." She steers them away, bursting into laughter when Amano, ears shining red, mutters something to her that's too quiet for Haruka to make out.

"Wow, Haru-chan," Nagisa says, while Makoto lifts a hand in a bit of an embarrassed farewell. "Your friends seem really cool."

Haruka has a very vivid recollection of Shimamura getting his head stuck in his t-shirt and running into a locker a few minutes ago, and says, "Er, I guess."

There's a little picnic area at the back of the building that they head to – four tables, benches, and even a drinking fountain set atop a slice of tarmac. They're right behind the pool; Haruka recognizes the windows set impossibly high in the wall, but he can't hear anything coming from them. It's either free-swim and nobody's in the pool, or they just aren't slanted open enough for sound to squeeze through.

The entranceway remains open, and a tall wooden fence with no discernible gate along either length makes up the other two sides of the enclosure. What's beyond the fence, Haruka doesn't know; it gives the place a sense of isolation, somewhere you could go to lay your head down on a table if you wanted to be away from everything and listen to the birds and planes and cars all out of sight.

Kou takes a checkered blanket out of the basket and lays it atop one of the tables, then she takes out four bento boxes. "I got up early this morning to make them, so you better all like them," she says, setting out napkins and utensils next. "I didn't add any protein powder this time, but…" She gives Makoto and Nagisa a critical look as they sit across from her. "Some of you could use some."

"Gou-chan, that hurts," Nagisa says, not sounding hurt at all and already opening up the bento nearest him.

Kou pulls the bento back to the middle of the table. "Well, I hope you're all at least staying active. You need to take care of yourselves, you know, even if you aren't swimming anymore." When she doesn't get a reply she turns a dangerous stare on Makoto and Nagisa; it makes Haruka think of a mother who hasn't had the opportunity to nag her children in a while.

"I run with Haru," Makoto says, raising his hands.

"I run to class when I'm late," Nagisa says, fingers inching for a pair of chopsticks. "Do you stay active, Gou-chan?"

She lifts her chin. "That doesn't matter." Before either of them can say anything, she turns to Haruka and says brightly, "So, Haruka-senpai, how were lessons?"

Haruka thinks for a moment of the ten little swimmers under his instruction, of ten colorful pairs of goggles and loose kickboards and feet splashing clumsily, and the  _Aww_ s of disappointment when lessons had ended.

"It went well," he says, and Kou smiles at him.

"Great!" Nagisa says. "Then we can eat!"

This time, Kou lets him snatch away a bento box. She tries to look stern for a moment, but this only lasts as long as it takes for Nagisa to exclaim, through a full mouth, that the food is delicious. She catches Haruka's eye, pushes a bento box in front of him.

"Haruka-senpai, eat! You've been busy!"

* * *

After they eat they wander, and eventually they end up back at their high school, in front of the flowerbed they planted in the spring. The bushes all around have grown thicker and taller, and the flowers have grown as well, petals bright orange and yellow and leaves a healthy green.

Haruka's looking over the tops of the bushes, though, through the chain link to the pool deck beyond. He can't see the water – the deck's too high – but he can still imagine himself at the poolside looking in, can imagine the sun beaming onto the surface and making it look glass-like, as easily as he can remember the feeling of the cement on his bare feet, burning when it was too hot. He can see the starting blocks, too, and can almost hear the buzz of a start signal and the wall of sound that is eight swimmers hitting the water in near-unity.

"Now that I'm standing here…" Kou starts to say, trailing off into another long stretch of silence. Haruka looks over at her, sees that she's been staring at the pool as well. Nagisa, on her other side, also looks on silently, a faraway, reminiscing sort of glaze to his face. Next to Haruka, Makoto chuckles as though he already knows what Kou is going to say.

"I kind of feel like I'm still supposed to order you all into the pool to get to practice," Kou finally finishes.

Off in some unseen part of campus, a lawnmower hums away. Otherwise, it's quiet until Haruka says, "We could probably climb the fence."

Kou looks at him. "Are you still wearing your swimsuit?"

"No," he says. He shrugs the swim bag on his shoulder. "But I could be soon."

"What about us, Haru-chan?" Nagisa says, all the dreaminess in his expression gone, to be replaced with an exaggerated pout. "Normally I don't mind skinny-dipping, but with Gou-chan here I don't know if I could do it."

"Nagisa…we're still in public anyway," Makoto says.

"It's a weekend, who's gonna be here?"

"You're not skinny-dipping!" Kou says.

Nagisa crosses his arms. "Gou-chan, if this has to do with you thinking I need some more protein powder –"

"Oh my god, Nagisa-kun, stop it!" Kou claps a hand over her face, starts laughing. Nagisa joins in, and their peals of laughter flurry around the flowerbeds. Haruka watches with a sense of baffled amusement. Slowly, their smiles slip away.

"I miss Rei-kun," Kou says.

Nagisa sighs. "Me too."

"Can we call him?" Makoto asks.

Nagisa shrugs in a way that implies  _No_. "One of his clubs has a brunch thing Saturday mornings." He squats down in front of the flowers, wraps his arms around his knees.

"One of his clubs?" Makoto says. "How many is he in?"

It's Kou who answers. She, too, sound subdued. "I think two. Society of Chemical Engineering something-or-other, and Biological-Chemical something Institute. Something like that." She kneels down next to Nagisa, who says to her, "Wasn't there something about some Brotherhood of So-and-So too?"

"Oh, yeah. The all-boys one. Sounds boring."

Nagisa laughs. "Gou-chan! Seriously, coming from you?"

Kou shrugs, and Nagisa's grin fades, and then the two of them stare at the flowers and don't say anything.

Haruka catches Makoto's eye; Makoto gives a small smile that's a little bit sad.

Haruka sometimes forgets that, especially after he and Makoto left Iwatobi High, Kou, Nagisa, and Rei were their own unit, completely separate from the group as a whole. What with carrying the swim club forward through its third year and finally getting it popular enough to warrant tryouts for new members, the three of them had shouldered a lot of responsibility together. Rei never particularly wanted to become captain, but he held the post dutifully with as much projected enthusiasm as possible, with the other two to lean on. And they did put together a very good team; amazing, for one person who hadn't know how to swim two years prior, and one who still doesn't, and then Nagisa, who Haruka still has trouble imagining holding any sort of authority position.

Though the reboot of the swim team had been his idea in the first place, and that had counted for everything.

"Do you think we can pick these?" Nagisa's asking Kou. Their heads are together, another sign of time spent together in discussions and planning. Haruka watches them, and even though he knows it can't be the same, he wonders if this is anything like what it's like for people who see him and Makoto together.

"Well, we planted them," Kou says. "But…"

"I don't want to kill any," Nagisa says, touching a bright orange petal with the tip of his finger.

"I think you'd need shears. I think just tearing it off will hurt it."

"Rei-chan would know."

Kou looks skeptical. "I doubt it; he didn't know anything last time. Why do you want to pick them, though?"

"'Cause they're so nice, of course! Ah, wait, look." Nagisa flops down cross-legged, picks one of the weedy white wildflowers sticking out of the grass instead.

"Those aren't nearly as nice," Kou says.

"Sure they are," Nagisa says. He plucks a second, then tucks one behind Kou's ear and the other behind his own. Grinning, he looks up at Makoto and Haruka. "Mako-chan, Haru-chan, how about you?"

Kou turns her head too, and with the two of them looking at him, jewel-toned eyes and a flower each behind an ear, Haruka feels a moment of profound protectiveness.

Has it really been so long since they were all on the other side of this fence together, Kou chasing them into the pool and timing their laps and handing out water bottles, Nagisa instigating impromptu breath-holding contests, or handstand contests, or diving contests? Haruka left this pool behind at the same time Makoto did, but now Nagisa and Kou have too, and it feels like…

Like they've all thrown off that security blanket now, that common thread that brought them together almost every day, so they'd always know what was going on with each other, could always see what was happening on each other's faces, track the change. Even after graduating, there had been a reason for Haruka to come back – not often, but once in a while, to see Kou and Nagisa and Rei at the pool and trick himself into believing for a little while longer that the scene in front of him was timeless.

Makoto politely turns down a flower. Nagisa puffs out his cheeks and announces that that just means more for everyone else, and he makes Kou laugh by picking another weed and putting it behind her other ear.

Kou tears up some grass, throws it into Nagisa's hair. Nagisa retaliates by doing the same to her. Makoto halfheartedly suggests that maybe they shouldn't mess up the lawn, and has grass thrown at him.

At least things haven't changed drastically, Haruka thinks.

* * *

They wander more, through the streets lined with food stops and boutiques and china shops, and little hole in the wall places that take up so little space they look like they've been forcefully wedged between whatever two businesses surround them.

Some of the doors are shut, some are open; some are decorated with beads and baubles designed to make noise when visitors arrive, or little lights to be lit once the sun is down, or craftsy-looking signs flipped over to  _'Open'_ ; others are less festive: unlit neon lettering, or the business hours stenciled into panes of glass, or nothing at all.

Kou and Nagisa walk few paces ahead of Haruka and Makoto, chattering away. There's a vague noise between Haruka's ears, like his brain leaking half-formed thoughts all over the place, like his mind has gone out of focus the way his eyes do sometimes when he stares at something for too long.

He feels a nudge in his side.

"Hey, Haru, look," Makoto says, coming to a stop. He's pointing at the shop window they're passing.

The mannequin on display wears a shirt emblazoned with a cartoonish dolphin mid-arc, like it's just leapt out of the ocean. It smiles and waves, one fin raised in a beckon.

"Let's go in," Haruka says.

Makoto lets out a laugh, which hitches into a sound of surprise. "Wait, really?"

Eyes locked on the shirt, Haruka backtracks to the shop door and goes inside, setting off the bell hanging overhead and warranting a greeting from the woman reading a book behind the cash register. The store smells a bit stale, though not in a completely off-putting way – like new clothes thick with the scent of dye, and like incense.

Behind the window display, racks and racks of clothing fill the corner of the shop, squished together to form narrow aisles. The bell chimes again, and he hears Nagisa and Kou wander away deeper into the store. Makoto comes up behind him and says, "Well, they sure are eye-catching."

"Which color should I get?" Haruka asks. They come in bright orange and bright yellow; the dolphin is a grayish blue and, up close, a little bit shimmery.

"Um –" Haruka looks over his shoulder in time to see Makoto's grimace "– they're both nice?"

"Hm," Haruka says.

Makoto rustles through the nearby racks. "Hey, this one has a crab on it," he says, holding up a lime green shirt with a grin. The crab waves just like the dolphin does, but with a claw instead of a fin.

"Crabs are for eating, not wearing," Haruka says.

Makoto snorts. "If you say so." He puts it back, then drifts around a corner.

Haruka picks an orange shirt off the rack, then trails after Makoto, following the sound of hangers sliding this way and that. He finds him at the wall, pointing at a turquoise shirt hanging too high up for anyone to reach.

"Look, I found Rin."

The shark is leaping out of the water, cartoon teeth triangular and sharp in a snarling mouth. Haruka's lips twitch.

"I don't know how happy he'd be if you gave him that."

"Honestly, he'd probably find some way of making it look like the newest fashion trend," Makoto says. Haruka decides that's probably true.

Makoto leads him through racks of sweatpants and sweatshirts, and then displays of sunglasses, and then stationary, toward the sound of Kou and Nagisa's voices drifting from the back of the shop.

"I don't know," Kou's saying, somewhere on the other side of two towering shelves of postcards. "It's kind of a…loud look. I think it's too much for me."

"C'mon Gou-chan, don't be silly," Nagisa says brightly. "They're fine."

"Hmm… I'm not sure I'd look good in them."

"You look good in everything! Right, Mako-chan?" Nagisa says, just as Makoto squeezes through the gap between the shelves.

Makoto chuckles. "Right," he says.

Haruka follows him through, and Kou and Nagisa come in to view at a dark wooden counter along the back wall. Nagisa turns one of the jewelry displays round and round, while Kou leans into the mirror mounted atop the second display, holding a pair of dangly earrings up to her earlobe. She lets out a huff of indecision.

"I know," Nagisa says, letting the display turn itself to a standstill. "A late birthday present!"

Kou frowns at him. "You got me that raspberry pastry, though."

"That was nothing," Nagisa says, waving his hand. "I got it last minute."

"And Haru and I didn't get you anything," Makoto adds.

"I said I didn't need anything," Kou says, turning her frown on him now.

"Exactly," Nagisa says. "You don't  _need_  these earrings, but you want them, so we'll get them for you."

Kou turns her frown lastly on Haruka, but when he just returns the look unwaveringly, she sighs.

"Fine, if you insist," she says, still looking doubtful. Then she notices the shirt in Haruka's arms and says, "Haruka-senpai, that's quite a shirt."

"Thanks," Haruka says. "It's for when Loosejaw-kun is in the laundry."

"I never see you wear Loosejaw-kun, though. When will you wear this one?"

"I could wear it to sleep," Haruka says, starting to follow Kou to the front register.

"You should wear it to practice. The kids would like it."

"I don't wear a shirt in the pool."

The grin Kou shoots him over her shoulder is unabashed. "Good," she says, and somewhere behind Haruka, Nagisa chokes into laughter.

It really is alarming, sometimes, how like her brother Kou can be – how she can be more than he is at his own game, sharper wit and quicker tongue. Who actually taught who? Haruka wonders. Rin probably would have choked – and not on a laugh – if he'd heard his sister just now.

"And Haruka-senpai," Kou says much later, voice much gentler, the basket in the crook of her elbow and her new earrings wrapped carefully inside, and a smile making her entire face soft in a way that's also alarmingly similar to something Haruka has seen in Rin time and again. They're seeing her off at the station; the sun has made it past its peak and has begun the slow hike back toward the horizon.

"It's  _Gou_ ," she says. At his surprised look she adds, "I could just tell." Then the doors close, and she waves through the window as the train pulls away.

* * *

Days pass quickly now. Haruka works on-hand at the rec center on Tuesday mornings with Zaki, doing anything from filing paperwork to running deliveries between various offices, to keeping the stock of towels at the front desk full and the bulletins along the walls updated.

He counts down the days until Rin's return – ten, then nine, then eight, then seven…

During the weekend his life is loud and crowded – lots of little faces and little voices, always forgetting to walk around the poolside, but none of them have forgotten the first week's lesson and they're eager to show off all they can do. It makes his job easier; they're so excited to be in the pool that they don't miss a beat when he gives them instructions. He's still surprised by how enthusiastically they listen to him; surprised that they listen at all.

"Your kids really love you," Shimamura says to him in the locker room that second Saturday, after they've finished their lessons.

"I know," Haruka says. "I'm not really sure why."

Shimamura laughs; the towel on his head slips to his shoulders. "Are you kidding me?" He shuts his locker, takes a seat on the bench to shake out his socks. "You totally have a way with kids. It's kind of surprising, no offense. Plus you're so calm. That probably makes them comfortable around you."

"I guess," Haruka says, neither convinced nor unconvinced.

Tuesday comes again, and the count is down to three days. Rin is taking exams, and Haruka sweeps the gym floor with Zaki.

She's way down at the back wall, pushing the giant dust mop along in front of her with a kind of listless determination that Haruka's become good at recognizing in things like her whole-body slump over the mop handle, or the barely-present expression she's probably wearing on her face. She has a talent for looking extremely un-enthralled, but he's yet to actually see her work anything less than her best.

Haruka empties his dustbin into the garbage can in the hall, and comes back into the gym just in time for Zaki to push another pile of debris up to his feet.

"How the hell does this much crap get on the floors?" she says. She props the mop against the wall, but it slips and clatters to the floor, and she looks at it like it's offended her.

Haruka sweeps up the pile, and tosses it out, and this time when he comes back into the gym Zaki is standing near the three-point line, staring up at the beams criss-crossing beneath the ceiling, fists on her hips.

"So, how do you think we're gonna get that down?" she says, when Haruka comes over.

Haruka looks up, sees a basketball wedged into one of the lower junctions in the beams. There's no real way to get to it, except…

"We can throw basketballs at it," he says.

Zaki laughs. "That's what I was thinking!"

So she wheels over the basketball cart from the corner of the gym, and they start tossing balls up at the crossbeams, then running around the gym to collect them, then tossing them again. Every now and then there is a metal  _clang_  as a ball hits a beam, but they mostly miss their mark and fall straight back to the hardwood. It sounds like an entire team is dribbling around the court.

"I never had good hand-eye coordination," Zaki says after a while, face flushed from the exertion. She's given up taking any kind of careful aim, and is instead launching the balls as hard as she can underhand. "Ugh, I'm getting tired."

Haruka lets loose the last basketball in the cart; it hits the junction, but not strongly enough to shake the trapped ball loose.

Just then, Kaji-san sticks his head through the gym door. He takes one look around and says, before disappearing again, "You two can take a break when you're finished cleaning up. Donuts in the main conference room if you want."

Zaki looks delighted. She grins at Haruka. "I say we just tell someone about this, and they can find a ladder and get it down."

So she rolls the cart around the gym, and Haruka follows along and tosses in the basketballs they've scattered. When, out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone enter the gym, he assumes it's Kaji-san again until Zaki lets out a happy laugh.

"Reiji, what are you doing? You're way early!"

Haruka turns and sees Amano standing at the edge of the court, dressed in a tank and basketball shorts, holding a drink in each hand. They collect the last of the basketballs and head over to him, and he holds one of the cups out to Zaki. Iced coffee, by the look of it.

He holds the second out to Haruka, and says, "I didn't know if you would want one. You don't have to drink it."

"Oh." Haruka stares at the cup, then realizes he should take it. "Thanks."

"He likes to play a gentleman," Zaki leans in to tell Haruka, in a not-so-quiet mutter that Amano pretends not to hear. "But really, why are you here so early?" she asks Amano. "We're only on break."

He says he's going to try out the weight room, before he and Zaki take advantage of the free-swim period to train in the pool. Zaki invites Haruka to join them, and leaves the offer open for future reference when Haruka declines.

"You want donuts?" she says to Amano, after taking a long swig of coffee.

"Already ate," Amano says. He takes a basketball out of the cart and shoots it cleanly through the hoop.

"Hey, we just cleaned those up," Zaki says. Amano just raises his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes. She sets down her coffee, takes a ball, and dribbles it to the free-throw line. Her shot hits the backboard, ricochets off the rim, and bounces away. She  _tsk_ s, then looks over at Haruka.

"Nanase, you ever played?"

Haruka recognizes a challenge when he sees one, and he sees another when Amano takes a second shot and is rewarded with the crisp  _swish_  of the net.

And so instead of eating donuts, Haruka spends his break drinking iced coffee and shooting hoops with Amano and Zaki, which is unexpected, and bizarre, and he isn't very good, but he has a surprising amount of fun.

* * *

He wakes up to his alarm the second Saturday of June and thinks,  _Rin's back._

He rolls over and checks his phone, but there's no new message. He isn't surprised, though – Rin's flight got in during the deepest hours of the morning. If anything, he'll probably sleep through most of the day.

Still, Haruka types out  _Welcome home_  and sends it before his brain can rev up enough to second-guess it. He left his window cracked last night, so his room smells like morning air. The hairs rise on his arms, and he rolls out of bed and changes before he gets too chilled.

The morning clouds burn off while he runs, so he eats breakfast outside on his deck (the cats have been gone for a while), then he takes the train to work. He spots Shimamura, who has just arrived from the other direction, when he gets off at the station.

Shimamura waves, accidentally knocks the cap off of his head and scrambles to catch it before it rolls over the side of the platform. He rams it back on backwards, then calls for Haruka to wait for him before rushing toward the railroad crossing. Haruka waits, and they head for the rec center together. When they reach the parking lot, they see Amano and Zaki disappearing inside.

"Hey, do you think they're together?" Shimamura asks suddenly.

Haruka looks over, but Shimamura is staring at the doors, a look of concentration on his face.

"I don't know," Haruka says. He's wondered about it too – he's noticed that sometimes Zaki tacks on a  _kun_ to Amano's name, and sometimes she doesn't, and Amano always has a watchful eye on her, but he's not good enough at reading signals to know what these ones mean.

Shimamura is quiet until they come across Amano in the changing room, and then he's back to being lively. Haruka hopes nothing comes out of the silence that just passed; he only has to think of him and Rin to feel a flurry of dread, because there's no way for Shimamura to avoid any of them should he try something stupid and have it go horribly wrong.

And then Haruka's thinking of the text he sent Rin earlier, and something drops like a stone into his stomach. His phone is at the very bottom of his swim bag again for a reason.

There's no room to dwell, though, once lessons start. The pool room echoes, and the smell of chlorine rushes up Haruka's nose. Mei and Yumiko, the two rowdiest from his beginner-level group, take his arms as soon as they leap off the bleachers, and try to talk over each other as they walk him toward the pool steps.

"Coach Nanase, look at my tooth. See?" Mei says, grinning wide and pushing her tongue against her bottom teeth. One of them wiggles and sticks out at an alarming angle.

"Stop it, gross!" Yumiko says, grimacing, while Mei giggles and the boys in the group crowd around to see. "What if you make it fall out in the pool? Coach Nanase, can we do back floats again? I think I can do it now."

They do back floats again, and Mei's tooth doesn't fall out in the pool, though the boys ask her every five minutes if it's still there. The first lesson seems to end as soon as it starts, and Haruka's intermediate-level group accosts him before he can even make it back to the bleachers. Kasuko has new butterfly earrings to show him, Taiki an impressive scar across his knee where a scab had been last week, the twins Asuka and Chou with new matching goggles (which, Haruka thinks, won't be too helpful for him.)

"Coach Nanase? You know the frog stroke?" Taiki says, right before the end of the lesson.

The group hangs onto the wall between the four and five-foot section, while Haruka stands a little ways out, about to start them on their round-up exercise. His fingers are pruning, the only real downside to spending so much time in the water.

"You mean breaststroke," corrects Noboru. Haruka thinks of him as the Rei of the group – expressive and very smart, though without the prescription goggles. He always clarifies everything Haruka tells him before trying out something new.

"Yeah, that one," Taiki says, scratching his nose. "We're gonna learn that one, right?"

"Do you all want to start the breaststroke next week?" Haruka asks the group at large.

Little fists pump, and everyone cries,  _"Yeah!"_ They really do make his job easy.

"We will, if you can each swim to me and back. Front crawl this way, and backstroke to the wall. Taiki, ready?"

Taiki pushes his palm against the lenses of his goggles. "You bet I am."

One by one they swim out to him and then return to the wall. Noboru and butterfly-earringed Kasuko take a moment to grab onto his hands out in the middle of the pool before turning themselves around, but they swim back without any trouble. The ones on the wall call out things like "You're almost there" or "Kick some more" or "Turn around now" so nobody hits their heads when they return. They make a great little team, Haruka thinks proudly. Who knows where any of them will go with swimming, but they have the right spirit.

Satou blows the whistle from the life guard podium – one long screech followed by a short blast that signals the end of the lesson – and Haruka dismisses his group. They splash through the shallow end and up the stairs, fold themselves into the towels their parents hold open for them along the poolside.

There's a ten minute gap between lessons, but all the worrying parents had worried themselves out to him the first two weeks, so all Haruka gets now are polite  _Thank you_ s and  _See you next week_ s. "Bye bye, Coach Nanase!" Taiki calls over his shoulder, goggles waving, as his mom frog-marches him away.

Haruka follows after them, heading for the locker room and wondering what to do for the rest of the day, only to come to an abrupt halt when he sees who is standing beside the door.

Makoto leans against the wall, smiling in his direction, and Nagisa is beside him, leaning forward and grinning. They're both in their swim gear.

And then, over Nagisa's shoulder, unmistakable red hair, unmistakable ponytail, is Rin.

"Jeez, soon your friends will be taking over this whole place, won't they?" Zaki says, passing Haruka by on her way to the drinking fountain. He hardly hears her and hardly sees her; his heart is thumping into his ears, an actual pounding sensation in his throat.

His eyes meet Rin's for one skewed second, but then he notices a familiar-enough head of silver hair. Nitori, standing next to Rin. And then orange; Mikoshiba Momotarou. And then, to make whatever's going on in his chest turn leaden and sink into his stomach, he sees Yamazaki Sousuke, tall and brooding, at the end of the line.

Haruka forces himself to start walking.

"Surprise," Makoto says, a bit hesitantly.

But Haruka goes straight past him and Nagisa, stops in front of Rin, and says, "What are you doing here?"

He realizes, the moment the words are out, that they don't sound very friendly at all. His brain feels like it's gone five places at once, though, so he can't quite gather the piece of mind to try to backtrack.

Rin gives an awkward laugh, rubs at his neck. He manages to look small, which is quite a feat. "Well, you said you wanted to race, so…"

"What?" Haruka says blankly. He glances to the side. Yamazaki has his arms crossed and is looking out over the pool, a bit of a frown on his face. Nitori looks apprehensive, and Mikoshiba is looking at the bleachers, where – Haruka turns his head – Kou is sitting. She sends Haruka a wave.

"What?" Haruka says again, looking back at Rin.

"Haru-chan, we're going to race," Nagisa cuts in, pushing off the wall and bumping a hip into Haruka. "Obviously."

"These guys were in the area," Rin says, motioning toward his old Samezuka teammates. "We all kind of figured it would be nostalgic, or something, to have a race. And you said you wanted to."

It hits him in that moment, like words processing minutes too late, that Rin is truly here. In front of him. Proposing a relay.

"Oh," Haruka says. "Okay."

Rin starts to smile. "Really?"

Haruka wants to point out that everyone's here, there's no point in saying no, but Rin could have at least given him some warning. But instead what comes out is: "There's still another lesson."

The smile blooms across Rin's face, and with it something unclenches in Haruka's chest.

"Yeah, Makoto told me there's free-swim afterwards, though," Rin says.

"I need to clock out," Haruka blurts. He turns on his heel and goes straight into the locker room. Picks up a towel and scrubs it through his dripping hair, realizes only once he's out the other door that he's walking barefoot through the hall. The linoleum is cold, and likely dirty, and he probably leaves a trail of droplets behind him, which is a safety hazard.

He runs into Ishikawa-san and Hiro in the hallway, rushing for the locker room, late for Hiro's lesson. He knows he exchanges some sort of greeting with them, but it's just another whirlwind added to the rush in his head.  _Clock out,_  he thinks, trying to center himself.

When he comes back to the pool room, they've all taken a seat on the top bleacher, and by the look of it Shimamura has been roped into the relay as well. He sits at one end, wrapped up in a very emotive conversation with Nagisa; Haruka does a quick count, and realizes he rounds out their eight. Rin sits with Makoto at the other end of the bleachers. They're laughing about something, and there's space beside Rin for Haruka to sit.

Haruka makes his way up the bleachers, muttering apologies to the people he steps in front of or who have to lean out of his way to let him by. He reaches the middle of the top row, then edges his way to the end, stepping over Kou's feet, then Mikoshiba's, then Makoto's, then Rin's. He notices that Rin and Makoto have stopped talking, which unsettles him more than it probably should.

He drops his towel onto the metal, and sits.

"Sorry this was so sudden," Rin says right away.

Haruka looks over. Rin's hands are on his knees, his fingers tensed. His hair is so long – the ponytail falls over his neck, the ends caught beneath the strap of his goggles. There's a pinch to his brow – an apology, or a question of whether he should be apologizing.

"It's okay," Haruka says. "I don't have anything else to do."

Rin's eyes slide away and he gives a slight nod, like he's reassuring himself.

Haruka watches Zaki and Amano with their groups in the pool for a moment, or tries to, but he has a hard time focusing on them. Even with all the noise bouncing from wall to wall, it's like he can hear Rin most of all, just  _being_  beside him, and the gritty sound of his own brain trying to work out what he should do next. He rubs his thumbs over the pruned pads of his index fingers, the far lesser discomfort at the moment.

He wants to ask what the others are doing here – he doesn't really believe that they were all just 'in the area'. He knows Yamazaki is in Tokyo now, and even visiting wouldn't put him in Iwatobi.

"You look like a good teacher," Rin says. "I mean, it looks like you're doing a good job," he adds quickly, and Haruka glances over to see a hint of a blush high on his cheekbones.

Now Rin is looking determinedly at the pool, so Haruka just says, "The kids like me."

"Yeah, I can tell," Rin says. He's smiling again, that quiet smile that always makes Haruka feel like he's seeing it by accident. Especially so now, with Rin's cheeks still flushed.

It's like a billboard blaring in his face; he knows exactly what that blush means, and no longer has any idea how to interpret the resulting twist in his stomach.

He's said things to Rin, and thought things to himself, and tried to rationalize the blur of emotions Rin's confession has been causing for months, and now he just…

Can't do anything but feel, probably. He's known that Rin likes him for  _so long_  now. He's exhausted all his shock at the knowledge, and the shocks now are just from seeing it in front of his eyes, the truth of it, the honesty. The strength – because it's been a long time, and Rin's face is still the same red, and that must be a lot of like.

"Aren't you tired?" Haruka asks. He needs to say something, because he's scared that otherwise he'll either keep staring, or he'll rub his fingers raw.

What do you do, he wonders, when someone likes you? What are you supposed to feel? What does it feel like, when you're not sure how you feel? What's the physical sensation that comes with handling that knowledge, and is he experiencing it right?

If Rin's hands are still tense over his kneecaps, such a clear show of discomfort, then where is the line between the discomfort of liking someone and the discomfort of not knowing how to handle being liked?

"Yeah, a little, I guess," Rin says. "But I don't have classes to worry about, so it doesn't matter."

"Oh," Haruka says, remembering: "You finished your first year. Congratulations."

Rin meets his eyes, looks away quickly. Breathes out a kind of messy laugh. "Thanks."

Haruka's relieved when Makoto suddenly turns from the conversation he'd been having with Kou and Mikoshiba to say, "Oh, Rin, you can still help me with my English a couple times a week, right?"

He's relieved to hear Rin speaking easily, and relieved for the breather. Relieved that until the end of the lesson, every other conversation he's dragged into involves Makoto as well, which means he doesn't have to say much, can just let Makoto interpret his one-word answers for them.

Lane markers are pulled across the pool once lessons are over, while the bleachers clear and the pool room takes on the volume of a hive of bees buzzing about. The locker room doors swing open and shut, and bit by bit the poolside empties and quiets.

Hiro catches sight of Rin before he leaves, and waves toward bleachers. "Min-chan, hi! Welcome back! Let's swim together, okay? Bye!"

Rin waves, but once Hiro and Ishikawa-san are out of sight, he gives Haruka an incredulous look.

"Why did he call me that?"

"He thinks your name is weird," Haruka says.

"What? Hey, don't laugh!"

Awkwardness is forgotten when they're at the poolside, because this is something they know how to do together. There's a matter of dividing into teams, which becomes more complicated when Zaki comes over, Amano in tow, and asks what's going on only to demand to take part in the race as well.

"We need two more people," Nagisa says, hands on his hips as he surveys the group. He looks back at Kou, who's moved down to the bottom rung of the bleachers.

"Are you kidding me?" she says. "Do you want me to drown?"

"Hold on," Zaki says. She calls across the pool to Satou, who's checking his phone by the shallow end. When he agrees to join their race, she says to the others, "He's a good swimmer, trust me. Still need another person, though."

It's Rin, who's been hovering silently at Haruka's side, who suggests that someone could go twice.

"Someone who's good at two strokes, you mean," says Yamazaki, the first thing Haruka's heard him say today. The first thing he's heard him say in well over a year, actually.

Yamazaki's standing a bit apart from the rest of them, still looking broody, arms still crossed. Like there are a million places he'd rather be, but for a moment his eyes dart away from Rin and meet Haruka's, and Haruka knows the real reason Yamazaki is being so uptight is because of him.

"And how many people does that leave?" Rin says, sounding haughty, stealing Yamazaki's attention back.

Yamazaki lets out a low laugh, a smug twist to his lips. "Just tell me if you think you'd get too tired. I'd be happy to take the burden."

"Tough words for someone whose best of the season is a fourth place."

"Okay you two, cut it out," Kou says ( _Gou,_ Haruka reminds himself absently; a wonder that with all that's going on, he's able to think of this). She makes them play a round of rock-paper-scissors, and in the end Rin is assigned the double leg.

Haruka ends up teamed with Mikoshiba, Nitori, and Zaki. To their left, Makoto and Amano are paired with Rin; on Haruka's right, Shimamura, Nagisa, and Yamazaki line up behind their lane, while Satou stands at the edge of the pool, whistle to his lips. Mikoshiba, Makoto, and Shimamura jump into the pool, get into position against the wall, hands in the gutters.

"So, Nanase, let's see what you've still got," Yamazaki says under his breath, just loud enough for Haruka to hear. He doesn't speak with outright hostility anymore, but the glance he spares Haruka still implies mistrust and, most of all, incomprehension.

For some reason he'd always feared Haruka would drag Rin down, that Rin wanting to swim with Haruka would mean Rin catching Haruka's attitude toward swimming; at least, that's what Haruka understood from his and Yamazaki's few, fragmented confrontations. The ones that usually ended up with him backed into walls and Yamazaki towering over him. Those confrontations were the closest Haruka's come to wanting to hit someone. He has to remind himself that Yamazaki has known Rin for longer, that Yamazaki cared about Rin's swimming and his future first.

He still doesn't get why Yamazaki was so scared. It's not like there was any way Rin would 'catch' Haruka's attitude – whatever Yamazaki thought it was – and detour away from the dreams he'd been fighting painstakingly for.

Even with that behind them, Haruka can still feel the weight of Yamazaki's judgment. Haruka knows that if anyone thinks he's wasting himself, it's Yamazaki – because, while loathe to what Haruka aimed (or didn't aim) to achieve with his swimming, Yamazaki always had a perverse sort of respect for Haruka's skill. Yamazaki told him, once, that he was good. Maybe the word used was  _incredible_ , maybe it was  _amazing_ ; either way, Yamazaki had looked like he'd rather bite his tongue off than repeat it. It was during the same confrontation that Yamazaki told him he was an idiot. He clearly hasn't changed his mind.

Haruka just wishes Yamazaki would stop caring; it's too in the past for him to feel angry anymore, he just simply doesn't understand why his future was ever something Yamazaki made it his business to form an opinion on.

The whistle shrieks, and the three in the pool are off with a splash. Nitori cheers Mikoshiba on; Nagisa's shouting "Kota-chan, good job, keep at it!"; Amano is silent and still. Mikoshiba pulls ahead quickly, but that means very little with how the teams are balanced.

Haruka can feel it on most peoples' minds instinctually, like this is still high school and he's studied the teams and knows who to be wary of – Rin and Yamazaki are the star players, and as he has neither on his team, he's counting on Mikoshiba to gain as much of a lead as possible early on.

"Makoto, hurry your butt up!" Rin's yelling, while Zaki's clenching her fists in front of Haruka and chanting "C'mon, orange dude, c'mon, orange dude."

Zaki whoops when Mikoshiba hits the wall and Nitori dives in; a couple seconds later Nagisa is in as well, followed right behind by Amano.

Zaki steps up to the edge of the pool, looks left at Rin, then right at Yamazaki. "I'm guessing you guys have never raced a girl before."

"Depends," Yamazaki says, looking over her head at Rin for a second. "This guy cries like one."

Rin makes an offended sound, and Zaki lets out a sharp laugh. They're all grinning in exhilaration. The sound of churning water and cheering cut straight into Haruka, making his heart race and his muscles tense in anticipation. Nitori is still ahead on the return, but Haruka watches the other two slowly gain time; any second now, Nagisa's strokes will appear to double in length.

When Zaki crouches down into dive position and says "It's you and me now, Nanase," Haruka gives her the silent encouragement to  _Win_. And then she's off, and Haruka steps to the poolside, takes a deep breath. He realizes he's holding back a grin, and lets it loose. He looks sideways for Rin, only to see him getting poised to dive.

"See you in the free, Haru," Rin says, moments before he's in the water, split-seconds before Yamazaki's in too. They tear after Zaki, and it's almost frightening to watch.

Haruka holds his breath for a moment, stunned by the ferocity with which they swim – some dizzying mix between flying over the water and forcing it out of their way. They look nothing like butterflies. It's competition – Haruka can feel it between them, an all-consuming intensity that's one step away from being frantic, that has been meticulously honed and controlled.

He's in awe. And then he shakes his head, forcing it clear, forcing all but his own lane out of his sight, and he's ready. The last thing he's aware of before he dives in, in third place but not by much, is that Zaki is grinning. When she hits the wall and shouts something garbled by the sound of water already hitting his ears and swallowing him whole, he has a very clear objective in mind.

_Beat Rin, beat Rin._

He doesn't, but Rin tires himself out by the end, whereas Satou is fresh into the pool and pulls off an impressive burst of speed that, coupled with the gain Yamazaki already made, wins the race by a long shot.

Haruka and Rin hit the wall so close together that third place isn't much of a loss. Rin is so tired he clings to the gutter as he heaves air into his lungs, while Satou is tugged out of the water by his cheering team. It's a ruckus on the poolside, and Haruka feels his own lungs burning, his own heart trying to break through the confines of his ribcage.

"Well, looks like we're both losers," Rin says when he can speak again, head resting against the wall above the gutter, an exhausted smile aimed Haruka's way.

Water laps around Haruka's shoulders, his neck, swelling against the wall and rolling back as waves that buffet his chin. "Looks like it," he says. He feels like he's on fire.

* * *

They're a loud procession through the halls afterwards. Haruka finds himself swept up between Nagisa and Makoto; somewhere behind him he hears Zaki begrudging Shimamura his win; Rin is up ahead with Yamazaki, ponytail swaying in time to his strides. Haruka learned in the locker room that Rin is heading to Samezuka with his old teammates to sit in on a practice. He wonders if that means they're simply done interacting for the day, if Rin was here like a whirlwind and will be gone just the same.

They're out the door into bright sunlight, down the steps, at the end of the railing. Haruka's just about ready to accept that all that's eventful has come to an end for the day, when Rin turns around and says, "Haru."

Yamazaki stops for a second too, looks from Rin to Haruka, looks his typical confused-displeased, and then he keeps walking. Everyone else continues their trickle into the parking lot, but Rin backtracks through them and stops in front of Haruka.

He waits until everyone is far enough away, and then he says haltingly, "Um, you said last time…you said you wanted me around. To get used to it or whatever." His eyes flicker away, but he wrenches them back. Haruka has to appreciate his bravery, or his boldness, or whatever it takes to be so outright about his feelings. The fastest way to the soul is through the eyes – is that the saying? Whatever it is, Rin holds his gaze stubbornly, if stubbornness can be timid and daring both at once.

"But, um, how much do you want me around?" Rin finishes.

"As much as you want to be," Haruka says. He doesn't even miss a beat, which is shocking to him because he doesn't know how much of this gut-twisting feeling he can handle, something more anxiety-ridden than just embarrassment.

"Okay," Rin says. He smiles tentatively. "Then, I know this was a race today, but I was serious when I said I'd race you. One on one, I mean. If you still want to."

"Okay," Haruka says.

Rin's eyebrows lift, like he's surprised Haruka had agreed so easily. "Okay. Then tomorrow. Same time?"

"Yeah."

"Great," Rin says. He gives another quick little grin that falls away in moments. He looks at the ground, kicks at a pebble, or at nothing at all. "And, um, thanks," he says. His cheeks flush all the way up to his ears. "It's good to be home."

Haruka's mind is blank, but then Rin looks at him and he remembers the text, and he feels his face go red.

"Oh," he says. "Yeah."

He doesn't know whose face is hotter anymore, just that he wants to melt into the ground, or take out his insides and incinerate them, or teleport home.

"Okay," Rin says. "I'll, um, text you tomorrow."

"Okay."

There's an unspoken  _Bye_  in there somewhere, but Haruka looks across the parking lot at the same time Rin does, and he's pretty sure they both realize they're going to have to cross it together.

But then the Samezuka group along with Gou and Haruka's coworkers break from the rest of them out on the sidewalk and start in the direction of the station, and Nitori waves both arms over his head and yells, "Rin-senpai, hurry up, we have to catch the train!"

Rin flashes Haruka one last grin, says "See you," and hurries off.

And for the second time that day, Haruka has to force his legs to work. He makes his way to Makoto and Nagisa, who wait with smiles on their faces. He wants to look after Rin and the others, feels his eyes drawn by the sound of their voices, but he feels like he shouldn't. His ears still burn – a feeling he's not at all used to.

"That was fun," Makoto says, once they're on their way to lunch.

"Yeah, I'm glad it worked!" Nagisa says.

"What worked?" Haruka asks.

Makoto chuckles. The sound is warm and familiar, helps settle some of the disjointed feelings still poking and prodding at Haruka's insides.

"Well, Rin texted us a couple weeks ago saying he wanted to set up a relay with as many people who were in the area as possible."

"And  _then_  he kept texting us to remind us not to forget," Nagisa adds. "Like that would've been possible after the fifth reminder anyway."

"He didn't text me," Haruka says, and they both look at him in a very  _You can figure this out, Haru_  kind of way.

Oh.

_Oh_.

_Wow,_  he thinks. _Rin did that for me._

The calm is gone, utterly and completely. It's too much, Rin likes him too much, Rin does too much for him, too much to try to make him happy. He doesn't know what he's done to deserve it, doesn't know that he deserves it at all.

And he's a bit wonderstruck that Rin thinks he does.

_Rin did that for me,_ he thinks. All through lunch, and afterwards, back when he's home, when he's running, and eating dinner, and getting ready for bed.

Lying under the blankets, thoughts too loud to grant him any sleep, he stares up at the ceiling that his eyes have slowly adjusted to seeing in the dark, and thinks,  _Rin did that for me._

He tries, one last desperate time before he gives up completely, to compartmentalize all the feelings crushing together in his chest.

He's happy. And afraid. Overwhelmed. Giddy. Full of dread for tomorrow. And so, so amazed that Rin can like him so much.

It hurts.

 


	12. Drive (Summer - part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't know yet, I posted the first part of a Rin POV side-story to Long Distance last month - feel free to check it out if a glimpse into Rin's side of things is something you're interested in! That was my February contribution to this series, but I'm back to the main story for this month. I know I always have more I want to say in these notes, but I always blank when it's time, so I'll just say that i give complete credit to junjouprince on tumblr for my belief that Rin used to read Gou's shoujo mangas when they were kids (he would, he so would!). That and, I hope you like the chapter! It ended up so dialogue heavy which is not typically like me.

Haruka tries not to look over at the bleachers when he faces their way the next day during lessons. He figures if he doesn't see when Rin arrives, he can pretend Rin isn't there. Of course, there's the ten minute gap between lessons to deal with, but when he looks Rin isn't there yet, and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a relief. Yesterday Rin had told him that he looked like a good teacher, which fills him with an indescribable feeling of embarrassment.

Once his second lesson ends and all his students and their parents have said goodbye, though, there's nothing else to delay the inevitable, so he faces the bleachers with a determined air of calm.

Rin still isn't there.

Haruka does a quick scan of the room, but Rin isn't anywhere, and now he doesn't know what to do. Is he disappointed? Relieved? Rin texted him this morning to say he'd be there by the time Haruka got off work, and Haruka just spent an entire hour and a half trying not to be nervous about it.

"Nanase, you heading home?"

Zaki passes by him to return a few leftover kickboards to the racks, but she looks over her shoulder at him in question.

"No," Haruka says, glancing distractedly back at the bleachers as though he'd somehow missed Rin amidst all the mothers filling the levels, but Rin's hair alone sets him apart in most crowds and is conspicuously absent there. "I'm waiting for someone."

"Again?" Zaki scrutinizes him, leaning an elbow against the kickboard stand. "Nanase, were you that really popular kid in school that everyone was surprised to find out was really popular?"

"What?" Haruka is a bit taken aback. "No. He's just one of my friends from yesterday."

"Mm-hm…" Zaki says. Haruka realizes she must think that everyone from yesterday was his friend, and he might have managed a weak snort if he wasn't so preoccupied with the worry that Rin has decided to show him up.

"I need to check my phone," he says, and he leaves her there. In the locker room he slings a towel over his head, and another over his shoulders, and makes his way to the employee lockers in the corner. When he fishes his phone out of his bag, there's a message from Rin waiting.

_sorry, we're gonna be a little late. gou's taking forever to pack._

The relief is unmistakable, though part of it has to do with the fact that Gou is coming along too. If he'd known that earlier he likely would have been a lot less nervous. He tells Rin that he'll be waiting on the bleachers, and makes it back to the pool room just in time to see Zaki round up her next group of swimmers.

He has nothing to do except watch the third round of lessons begin, so he scoots all the way to the edge of the bottom row of the bleachers and hopes he doesn't look too awkward. He catches snippets of the conversations the mothers are having around him – a lot about school, and homework projects they've helped with, or the newest gossip they've read in the celebrity magazines. He drums his heels against the cement, looks from the locker room entrance to the visitor entrance across the pool, a knot forming in his stomach.

It's Gou that appears first – she spots Haruka and waves from the visitor entrance, and quickly makes her way over.

"Hi, Haruka-senpai!" She slings her backpack heavily onto the bleachers, which give a resounding metal  _clang_ , and sits beside him. "Sorry we're late! I couldn't find one of my textbooks."

"You're catching the train?" Haruka asks, eyeing her backpack, which looks like it could rival Shimamura's right about now.

"Mm-hm, after lunch. Nii-san said you needed someone to officiate your race, speaking of which, will it start soon, because I woke up early to start packing and lunch sounds really good right now."

She lets out a little huff when Haruka tells her there are still twenty minutes of lessons left. "Well, make sure you two race quickly," she says.

"That's the idea," Haruka says. He notices she's wearing the earrings they bought her a couple weeks ago; they catch the light and glimmer in a cheerful way. He already feels more at ease, and wants to thank her for coming along.

Still, when Rin comes out of the locker room a few minutes later, Haruka's stomach lurches slightly – a kind of internal  _Oh no._

But halfway over, Rin meets his eyes, smiles. Mutters, sitting down on Gou's other side, "Ready to lose?" and Haruka can breathe a little easier.

He gives Rin a severe look but doesn't actually say anything, because he _is_ pretty ready to lose. It's kind of a depressing feeling, or it should be, but since he's accepted it he's more looking forward to the feeling of Rin speeding along at his side once again. A real race with no one else, just them – how long has it been?

"How were lessons today, Haruka-senpai?" Gou asks. "It's so cute seeing you teach all those kids!"

Haruka turns his frown on her. "It's not cute."

"Haruka-senpai, you don't know cute. It's very cute. Right, Nii-san?"

"What?" Rin splutters, looking shocked. Then he says unconvincingly, "Are you kidding me? There's nothing cute about it."

"Just because you're a  _boy_ ," Gou says, oblivious to the desperate look Rin gives her, "doesn't mean you can't say things are cute."

"Yeah, thanks  _Mom_ ," Rin says, face going splotchy, "but Haru teaching swimming lessons isn't something I'd call cute." He keeps his gaze trained very determinedly off of Haruka when he says it, and Haruka's stomach swoops with nerves but also amusement.

"Oh," he says suddenly to Rin, the thought coming out of nowhere, "thanks for yesterday."

Rin goes beet red and looks at him accusingly. Between them, Gou giggles.

"I told you he'd figure it out," she says to her brother. Then she leans toward Haruka and mutters, "He thought if he told you he'd planned a race for you it'd be too embarrassing. Honestly, Nii-san, there's no need to be so embarrassed about doing something nice."

Rin looks like he wants to melt into the bleachers. Haruka doesn't quite understand where the swell of happiness he feels comes from, just that it makes him feel a little freer, his words coming more easily.

"Really," he says, hoping he sounds sincere. "Thank you. I had fun."

"Yeah, yeah," Rin says, waving a hand. "Whatever. You're welcome." He props his elbows on his knees, and his chin moodily on his fists, and even as the flush fades from his face it burns brightly in the tips of his ears.

Gou starts asking Haruka questions about his lessons, so for the rest of the class period he talks to her while Rin pretends to be off in his own world. Haruka can tell he's listening though – he can see the slight tilt of Rin's head toward them, the smiles that twitch onto his lips every now and then.

When the whistle for the end of lessons sounds, Haruka watches the smile transform into a full-blown grin. Rin slaps his hands against his thighs and shoots to his feet, and then remembers where he is and apologizes awkwardly to the mothers behind him, getting out of the way so they can climb off the bleachers and retrieve their children.

"Hi Zaki-san!" Gou calls, once the room has begun to clear.

Zaki waves from the equipment rack, comes over. "You guys swimming again?" she says, looking from Haruka to Rin.

"They always have to swim one-on-one," Gou says with a little sigh. "It's tradition."

"I see," Zaki says, sounding interested. Something about the way that her eyebrows go up implies that she already knows who she expects to win. Haruka's a little disappointed by her lack of faith in him, though he can't blame her. She looks at Rin. "You swim free then, too? I mean, you really focus on it and yesterday wasn't just for fun."

"He got scouted to a team in America," Gou says, sounding kind of like a gloating mom.

"Get out," Zaki says, looking at Rin in newfound wonder. "Seriously? That's so cool! So the season's over, then?"

Rin rubs his neck, his grin embarrassed. "Yeah. I'm gonna get some training in here. Kaji-san's still letting me in for free."

"Hey, if I see you around the pool ever, can you give me some tips?" Zaki says quickly. "On my form and stuff? For the fly?"

Rin looks surprised. "Yeah, sure, if you want…"

"He was team captain in high school," Gou cuts in. "He'd love to."

"Great, I'm holding you to that." Zaki says. She lifts a hand. "Okay, gotta go. See you later, Nanase. Nice seeing you Gou, Matsuoka."

She waves to Satou, who's climbing down from the lifeguard podium, before disappearing into the locker room. The poolhands start rolling out the lane markers; the drag of the plastic rungs over the lip of the pool and the quiet  _swish_  of them being pulled through the water fill the room while Haruka and Rin stretch at the poolside. And then the markers are all laid out, and Satou and another lifeguard exchange shifts, and the ripples in the pool fade into nonexistence.

"So," Rin says, with a sidelong grin at Haruka. "You said you'd need a head start. Still wanna claim it?"

Haruka doesn't. He doesn't want to admit that pure talent can only get him so far, which is especially true when he's allowed that talent to rust, especially true when Rin's training shows all over his body – like he's trying to make his muscles grow muscles.

But he has to admit it, so he says, shelving his pride as best as he can, "How many seconds will you give me?"

"Hm…" Rin says, clearly enjoying himself. "Maybe…two seconds? Or three, if you pay for lunch?"

Gou slaps his arm.

"Ow! Ok, fine, whatever you want, no cost."

Haruka shrugs. Rin's offer is generous – not because it would give him a huge head start, but because Rin seems to think he's still good enough to need such a small lead. Or maybe Rin's just being nice.

"I don't know," Haruka says. It's one thing to admit to needing a head start, but another thing completely to have to ask for the time specifically. "You pick."

"How about you start swimming," Gou says, starting to sound impatient, "and I tell Nii-san when he can go."

"Are you kidding me?" Rin looks scandalized. "You'd never tell me to go."

"Well, you'll never go this way either."

Haruka looks down his lane, the markers swaying slightly. The gutters sputter halfheartedly. "Actually, I don't need a head start," he says, starting to feel stupid thinking about one. What will he do, just dive in and swim against nobody for a few seconds while Rin and Gou watch? That would probably be more embarrassing than knowing Rin was there watching him teach lessons.

"You sure?" Rin says.

He isn't sure, and looks over at Rin to communicate so. Rin lets out a loud laugh.

"Haru, just take a few seconds! Or pick a distance, and I'll start when you get there. But not too far," he adds hastily. "Just like, a little head start."

"Or I can decide for you two," Gou says.

"That's fine," Haruka tells her.

So Haruka does the pride-shelving thing again, which honestly doesn't feel like it works because diving into an empty pool with Rin still waiting on the sidelines, goggles on his forehead, feels really lame. He doesn't feel Rin come up behind him as soon as he expects – he breaks the surface, and though he doesn't look back, he doesn't feel like he's being followed. Rin can't be giving him that much time, can he? Gou wouldn't give him that much time… And he needs Rin in the water to give him that sharper focus.

But then, suddenly, he's there. Just a sensation at first, the undeniable knowledge that Rin is in the water, gaining on him, predator-like. It inspires a kind of thrill that's both panic and excitement, and his thoughts narrow down to the wall ahead of him and the force behind. Now he's swimming.

It's at the turn, like it's always been, that Rin gains the most time. Haruka's still ahead, catches a blur of Rin as they cross paths, but then the distance slices smaller and he knows Rin's on the straightaway as well. At his heels, at his knees. He pushes for the wall with each stroke, feels Rin's energy overtaking him, rushing through him and trying to drag him down as much as it spurs him faster.

The water roars in his ears, and Rin is a furious force beside him. His veins hum, his muscles, his nerves. The wall races up to meet him, and he reaches.

He knows the result before he can even gasp for a breath, like the pull between them finally gave, chose one of them at the last split-second.

He lost. Unlike yesterday, he minds. Even though it was inevitable, even though he expected it, a loss to Rin alone stirs up the embers of a rivalry that will never be put out.

Then sees Rin grinning and so out of breath that he's clinging to the gutter to keep him up. Rin meets his eyes and lets out a winded laugh that sounds more like a cough, and Haruka knows that that happiness doesn't come from beating him, but from racing him, which makes all the difference. So he minds, but there's satisfaction there as well.

* * *

It turns out that Gou had pushed Rin into the pool. He complains to her about it when he climbs out, but he's grinning when he holds out a hand to pull Haruka out. He's still pretending grumpiness when they part ways with Gou to enter the locker room.

"I might as well just have given you five seconds," he says, slicking his hair back and squeezing out the ends.

"You still won."

"Hardly! That almost killed me!"

Haruka shrugs. "You still won." He's still a little bit annoyed, but hopes Rin doesn't notice. If Rin does, he doesn't say anything.

They change in separate parts of the locker room. As he pulls on his socks, Haruka thinks about the fact that Rin hadn't gloated at all – and  _this_  is something very different from the old days. Rin loves to win and loves to celebrate his wins, even when the celebration is done in good humor, but this time he'd practically brushed his win aside.

Had he known he'd win too? Or was the race underwhelming, and there was nothing to celebrate? But he had been smiling…

Haruka finds Rin waiting for him by the exit, leaning against the lockers nearest the towel bin. Kaji-san must have already assigned him a locker to keep, because he doesn't have anything with him.

"About time," Rin says, pushing off the lockers. "Gou will probably eat one of us if we take any longer. Oh yeah, you're supposed to come to lunch with us. Gou said so."

"I figured that out already," Haruka says.

Rin digs his hands into his pockets, shoulders open the door. "Well hurry up then, or she really will eat you."

* * *

They take a window table in a small but busy American food joint a few blocks from the harbor. Gou shoves her bag onto the seat beside her, and Rin takes the seat beside Haruka next to the window.

Gou orders a burger and Haruka, after a long peruse of the menu, settles on some sort of fried, breaded fish stick (the type of fish isn't specified), which he realizes with equal parts reluctance and horror taste fantastic slathered in ketchup – something Gou had goaded him into trying ("Haruka-senpai, you can put ketchup on fish, calm down.")

Rin orders a salad, but throughout lunch Haruka watches him steal fry after fry off of Gou's plate. "You know, those people you work with," he's saying to Haruka, holding a fry in one hand and his salad fork in the other, "they aren't half bad swimmers. That Zaki girl's pretty intense."

"She's competitive," Haruka says. He watches Rin's hand sneak toward his plate, and gives it a threatening look.

Rin gives a sheepish laugh. "Can I?"

"Fine," Haruka relents, pushing his plate over.

Rin snatches a fish stick, dunks it into the ketchup on Gou's plate. "Man, this Western food is so addicting," he says, sounding kind of mournful through a full mouth. "Don't let me eat too much; I don't wanna feel sick when I have to swim later."

"Nii-san, you can take a day off," Gou says, wiping a smear of ketchup from the corner of her mouth. "Eat some fried food and then just relax all day."

Rin scoffs, covering his mouth with his hand. "I can't take a day off."

"Yeah you can."

"Um, no I can't."

"Um, yeah, you can."

There's a sudden commotion from Gou's backpack, and she jumps. "Oh, my phone!" she says, and she wipes her hands quickly on a napkin before digging furiously through the pockets of her bag. An mp3 player, a pack of gum, a folded pair of yellow socks, a couple receipts, three hair ties, and what looks like a frayed shoelace all make it onto the table before she finds her phone. "It's Rei-kun!"

" _Rin-san?!_ " Rei says when they greet him on speakerphone.

"And me," Haruka says.

"Yes, hi Haruka-senpai," Rei says fervently, his voice slightly tinny. "Are the others there as well?"

"Nope, just us three," Rin says, leaning forward on his elbows. Haruka and Gou lean forward as well; the phone is in the center of the table, and it's hard to hear Rei well over the sounds of the other diners.

"Welcome back to Japan, Rin-san," Rei says. "I hope your flight went smoothly and wasn't plagued by crying babies."

"No crying babies this time, thankfully," Rin says. "Still didn't sleep much, but…"

"It's quite common for people to have difficulties sleeping aboard an aircraft," Rei says. "I personally have a hard time getting used to the dryness of the air; it makes my nose burn."

"Oh, hey, Rei-kun," Gou cuts in, "what are the names of the clubs you're in?"

"Brotherhood of Biological-Chemical Studies and the Chemical Engineering Society of Tokyo," he says, promptly and pompously, and Haruka can imagine him pushing his glasses up his nose. But he sounds disheartened when he continues on. "I've actually been contemplating withdrawing from the Brotherhood. I believe I've tried to fit too much onto my plate on top of my course load. My sleep schedule has been gravely affected and I cannot risk my ability to perform for my classes, and dropping a club would free an entire afternoon and morning… What do you three think I should do?"

"Rei-kun…" Gou frowns down at the phone. "You don't have to work yourself to the bone, at least not yet. It's your first year still."

"I know, Gou-san," Rei says sulkily. "But I want to be as involved as possible!"

"Rei," Rin says, and there's a crisp note of authority in his voice. "You can get more involved over time. If you don't think you can manage both clubs without affecting how you can do in all your classes, drop one for now so your grades don't suffer. Once you get more used to your workload, then you might be able to take on another extra activity."

Haruka is impressed – it's a glimpse back at the captaincy Rin once had, an authority that, while nowhere near vanished, seems to have dwindled since Rin went to America.

Rin catches his eye, looks a little embarrassed.  _What?_  he mouthes.

"Rin-san, you're right, of course," Rei says, still sounding unhappy. "What do you say, Haruka-senpai?"

Haruka looks away from Rin, leans over the phone. "I agree with Gou and Rin. Rei, don't push yourself too hard. You have a tendency to overwhelm yourself."

"Yes, all right." Rei sighs. "It probably is for the best… Ah! But Gou-san, I called because Nagisa-kun just called me and told me that you two had spoken about…"

They're on the phone with Rei until Gou's phone battery starts blinking red, by which time the table beside theirs has emptied and filled again. Once they hang up Gou digs through her backpack some more until she finds her portable charger.

"You know,  _somebody_  could take his own advice about working too hard," she says, tucking both the charger and her phone into her backpack's front pocket, and then starting to stuff everything else in around them.

Rin frowns at her. "My grades are fine, though."

Gou frowns back, only hers is more affective – stern and judgmental. "But now you won't even be here until I start my break."

"I'm sorry," Rin says, sounding like this is something they've bickered over before. "But I'd have to go back soon anyway for swimming and everything else."

Gou turns to Haruka, looks like she's about to tell him a bit of news she's been harboring that has disappointed her greatly, and like she expects him to be as disappointed as he is.

"Nii-san is only staying three weeks."

Haruka's eyes dart to Rin, who avoids his gaze.

"I'm taking summer classes," Rin says defensively to his empty salad plate. "But me and my friends are moving to an apartment and I have to be back in time to help with that."

Gou lets out a loud breath. Then she mutters, "I just wish I didn't get to only see you on the weekends."

"Yeah, well, me neither," Rin says. He slumps down onto the table, lets his arms stretch out across it. "Life is life. Vacations get shorter. Brothers have to work harder, all the way on the other side of the ocean, far from home, where the food's all real expensive, and people ask you where you're from all the time, and then they tell you to say something in Japanese, all the time."

Gou has her arms crossed and is looking away, but a reluctant smile takes to her lips. Seeing this, Rin takes hold of her plate and says, "You gonna finish this?"

"Jeez, stop eating!" Gou says, but she lets him take the last quarter of her burger.

_Three weeks,_  Haruka thinks, still reeling at how short that sounds. He hadn't expected much, hadn't been expecting anything – of course Rin can't stay the whole summer with swimming – but just being able to count the time in weeks, in less than a single month, makes Rin's departure feel so imminent.

Now Rin is here, eating Gou's food and bickering with her and getting ketchup all over his hands, but in three weeks he'll be gone all over again. It's like it's become suddenly all the more crucial that Haruka savors this time while he has it.

* * *

They have to hurry to the station so that Gou doesn't miss her train, and end up running the last couple blocks and reaching the platform just as the train roars in.

"You can just take the next one!" Rin says, even though he's pulled her most of the way and pulls her up the steps now.

"I can't, I'm meeting someone!" Gou says, panting for breath, her hair flying and her backpack bouncing noisily against her back.

Rin stops suddenly when they reach the doors, but Gou keeps going, colliding with him and throwing her arms around him in a tight hug. Rin staggers but finds his balance, and hugs her back.

"I'll see you next weekend," Gou tells him. "Be nice to Mom and help her with the dishes, and do your laundry and make dinner at least one night a week."

She releases him before he can answer, then turns to Haruka, who stopped a few steps back, and throws her arms around him as well. Haruka lets out an  _Oomph!_  of surprise, and the arms quickly squeeze the breath out of him before letting go.

"Bye Haruka-senpai, I'll see you too. You two better get along!" Gou says, before jumping aboard the train.

The doors close with a hiss of air, and the horn blares. The crossing gates lower, bells ringing and lights flashing, and Haruka watches – Rin backing away from the train to stand beside him – as the train slowly lumbers out of the station, picking up speed the farther away it gets.

Haruka rubs at his side, wondering faintly if he'll have a bruise from that hug. He hears Rin chuckle, and looks over.

"Watch out," Rin says, smiling at him. "She can be a hazard to your ribs."

Haruka lets his hand drop, feeling flustered for no apparent reason. Rin looks back at the tracks, at the receding train. The sun hits the side of his face, turns his hair copper, twisted up into a messy knot low on his head and still damp. The gates jangle for a little while longer, and rise once the train lets off a faint bellow far in the distance.

"So," Rin says. "Wanna call it a day, or do you still wanna hang out?"

Rin is still looking after the train, and Haruka realizes he hasn't looked away from Rin. He feels Rin's attention on him. Waiting, anticipating, hoping.

"I don't have anything else to do," he says.

"Great," Rin says, and it sounds like an exhale. He grins at Haruka. "Because I have something to do."

* * *

Rin must have seen the bookstore earlier, or at least known where it was, because he leads Haruka right there. It's a five minute walk from the station, and the store is surprisingly large, larger than most of the other little shops fit together like puzzle pieces. There are blue awnings over the door and windows, and posters in the glass advertising new releases.

Rin holds the door open, so Haruka goes in first, and the clerk at the station nearest the door greets him. "I'm looking for something" is all Rin says, following him in and then passing him by and heading straight into the heart of the store.

So Haruka follows him down the center aisle, past the colorful collections of new and popular books, past aisles and aisles of tall wooden shelves – science fiction, fantasy, mystery, children's, nonfiction. He sees a few people down the rows they pass but they all peruse quietly, and the conversations from the checkout counter quickly grow distant, making the place feel nearly empty.

Rin takes a sharp left down the aisle at the very back of the store. The shelves here are filled with reference-type books, and it must be that they don't get as much attention because Haruka can smell the pages – that musty, cloistered new-book smell. He wonders if Rin has taken him along for school shopping. Rin just walks down the row, slowing down slightly a few yards in, his head turning from side to side as he searches for something he very clearly thinks he'll find.

Haruka doesn't know if he should pretend to be interested in the books down this row too, or go off and look around elsewhere, or just hover a few steps away from Rin and feel awkward. The quiet brings back with it the tentativeness that had vanished all morning; he thinks about asking Rin what he's looking for, but doesn't know if he should, doesn't know how hard Rin is concentrating, doesn't know if he wants Rin's attention on him now that the ease of the past few hours is dwindling into something jittery and frustrating again.

What frustrates him the most is how he goes from being aware of Rin, to being  _aware_  of Rin. One moment Rin is just Rin, there, in the vicinity of Haruka, wherever that is. Swimming pool, lunch table, train station.

And then Haruka is nervous and he can't stop looking, and Rin becomes so much more specific. He's five paces away, looking through books, eyes narrowed in focus. He's the hair falling out of his hair tie and over his shoulder, the hand in his pocket, the thin golden chain around his wrist, the breath he releases through his nose that's maybe frustrated, maybe just some unconscious sound. He's tall and broad-shouldered, and has a flannel shirt tied through his belt loops, and has laced his boots only three-quarters of the way to the top. He's an unconscious frown, a pull of tension on his forehead, a look that Haruka knows appears intimidating, but in reality melts into something friendly and open in seconds.

In these moments, it's like Rin becomes more precious to him. He's so many individual little touches, and Haruka notices the small things more and more and thinks about them more and more, but that's only because he's wondering if right now Rin is thinking about him, if Rin is focused on him even when he doesn't seem to be.

"Found it," Rin says. He slips a very small book off the shelf. "Pocket dictionary," he says, holding it up for Haruka to see. "For Makoto. They're useful if you just need a word. And usually you just need a word. The context you can usually just kinda…" He makes a whole-body gesture, a flop of his arms and a wiggle of his shoulders, and Haruka can't help giving a quiet snort. "Hey, don't laugh, you've never had to try to communicate overseas."

"I'm sure Makoto will be glad to have it," Haruka says, willing the nerves away.

"I mean, you can always count on phones for stuff like this," Rin says, scanning the shelves again, fingers trailing over book spines, "except for when you don't have service or you're out of battery or whatever. It's good to have a backup." He taps the dictionary against his temple. "You gotta be practical about these things."

"Makoto will probably carry it everywhere."

When they're heading back to the front of the store, Rin says, "Do you wanna look at anything?" Haruka's about to say that he doesn't, but Rin is already veering off toward a display stand near the entrance.

"Look at this," Rin says with a laugh when Haruka comes up beside him. He's pointing at a dark book titled  _Deep Blue_ , and when Haruka looks closer he sees the faint outline of silvery bubbles trailing upward over the glossy cover, meant to evoke the feeling of being deep underwater.

"Your kind of book?" Rin says.

"Hm."

Rin  _tsk_ s. "Fine, guess not. I need…" He walks to the other side of the table, lets out a heavy sigh. "This."

Haruka follows him, and finds himself in front of an explosion of lilac. The book covers are gaudy, with lace designs in the corners and a curlicue title in the center that he can hardly decipher.

"What is that?" he says, the words coming out more appalled than he'd expected.

"Gou likes these," Rin says, grimacing and picking up one of the books. "They're really trashy romance novels but they're  _so_  popular. The new one just came out…"

"They're romance?" Haruka says. He touches the bumpy corner of one of the books like he's touching something that might bite. "Are you sure you haven't read any of them?" Gou let it slip once accidentally-on-purpose that Rin used to sneak into her shoujo manga collection when they were younger. Rin had been mortified at the time but hadn't actually denied it, and now his ears go red.

"I've read one, okay, but that's all, and it was for a bet," he says defensively. "Gou practically lives off these things, it's scary."

"They can't be that bad, can they?" Haruka says, taking a book from the stand and flipping it over to glance at the critics' reviews. He sees words like  _steamy_  and  _heart-wrenching_  and  _a moving tear-jerker_. "Not if they're so popular."

"Hah!" Rin scoffs.

Two teenage girls step up to the display and each take a copy of the book. They cast furtive looks at Rin and Haruka and the books in each of their hands, and giggle under their breaths as they head away.

Rin looks mildly distressed. "I'm checking out," he announces, placing the pocket dictionary over the book for Gou, which does very little to disguise it. Haruka puts the copy he's holding back on the display, then follows Rin to the checkout.

Sometime between them entering the shop and now, all but one of the clerks has gone on break or otherwise disappeared from the front, so a line has begun to form. Haruka and Rin add themselves to the end of it, adopting the silence of everyone in front of them.

Rin fingers through the bookmarks hanging specifically so people about to check out will buy one more thing, and Haruka watches the little charms tinkling together on the ends of them. Then the line moves up, and he and Rin lurch forward a few steps, their shoulders bumping together.

The windows behind the checkout are tall and wide, beckoning in the sunlight so that the wooden counters glow warmly. By the time Haruka and Rin are at the front of the line, they're shoulder to shoulder and Haruka is only half aware of it. He can think about it, think  _Rin's shoulder is against mine, right now, and now too, and now also, and it's not going away,_  but it's easier to let his thoughts float somewhere just outside of his head, warm and glowing like the wood counters.

It's like slowly, slowly, the longer they're together, the more things go back to normal, or at least to something Haruka is okay with.

Except maybe it isn't slowly, because this is only Rin's second day back. Or maybe it's a long time coming, because he's been waiting to have Rin back for more days than he can count.

* * *

Two blocks away, outside of a small dojo, a group of elementary-aged kids stand around a fold-up table, a bright green sign taped to the front and two ice boxes sitting on top

"Hey, mister!" one of them says as Rin and Haruka pass by. "Wanna buy a popsicle? We're raising money for our club."

"What? Who're you calling 'mister'?" Rin says, stopping to read the sign, which says in large script: POPSICLES.

"So wanna buy one?" the kid asks him. "We have cherry, orange, strawberry, and melon."

"I'm not a 'mister'," Rin grumbles, crossing his arms, though he peers into one of the ice boxes.

"Well you're pretty tall," the kid says. "Those ones are melon and orange."

"How can you tell them apart?" Rin says. "They're all orange."

"The melon ones are kinda darker. But also it's funner if it's a surprise."

"Huh?!" Rin says, sounding scandalized, though Haruka can tell that it's staged. "What if I want orange but I get melon, and I hate melon?"

"Then you shouldn't pick an orange one. That's risky."

Rin looks at Haruka, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Haru, do you think it's worth the risk?"

"You don't hate melon," Haruka points out, stepping up to the table. "So it's not really a risk."

"Fine, yeah, let's have no fun. Hey," Rin says to the kid. "Your sign doesn't say how much these are."

"400 yen for one, or two for 650."

"Man, so expensive…"

"I'll have a melon one," Haruka says. One of the kid's partners sticks his hand into the ice box, and Haruka pulls out his wallet.

"Wait, it's cheaper if we buy two," Rin says. He grabs Haruka's wrist, and then he kind of falters for a second and quickly lets go. He doesn't look at Haruka, but he also doesn't show any sign of what just happened, when he says to the kid, "I want a melon one too."

"I don't know if I can split 650," Haruka says, looking through his coins. He decides to pretend like he didn't notice anything either, even though he can still feel Rin's hand on his skin.

"I can make it 660 yen," the kid says, "if that'll make it easier for you."

Rin gives him a narrow-eyed look. "You better watch out, kid," he says, and gets a grin in response.

In the end, Haruka scrounges up enough small coins, and Rin mumbles as they walk away that it wasn't a good deal at all. He doesn't seem too bothered though, because he tears open the wrapper and bites off a corner of his popsicle. "I got melon," he says happily. "Did you?"

Haruka takes a bite of his. It's sweet and tangy – "Orange."

"Wanna trade?"

"It's fine. I like orange."

The popsicles are already soft and melt quickly, so Haruka and Rin find a brick ledge outside a quiet store front and sit there, letting the popsicles drip onto the cement instead of their clothes while they try to eat as much of them as possible. Rin has worse luck – juice keeps trickling down his wrist – until Haruka's breaks down the middle and one half falls right off the stick. He catches it in his palm, and then sticks it in his mouth. His teeth go numb from the cold.

Rin finishes first, then tips back the wrapper and drinks the slush at the bottom. He makes a face, nose wrinkling and tongue sticking out. "Too sweet…"

Haruka crunches into the last of his popsicle, tries to think of a way to fill the silence.

"How is Yamazaki doing?" he asks.

He wishes he hadn't the moment the words are out. Rin looks at him like he's started speaking a different language, which isn't that far-fetched. He doesn't know why he asked, didn't know two seconds before he did that he was going to. He'd just been thinking about how nice today has been, about how yesterday had been nice too, but a lot to take in, a lot of people he didn't think he'd see.

"With his swimming," he tries to remedy, but it still rings false.

"He's doing pretty good," Rin says cautiously.

"He still doesn't like me," Haruka says, and he thinks,  _Ah, this is it_.

Rin gives a quiet chuckle, crinkling the plastic wrapper up in his hand. "You still don't like him, either."

"I'm indifferent," Haruka says quickly, but Rin clearly doesn't believe him and he doesn't believe himself either. "I could be, if he didn't have such a problem with me."

"He doesn't really have a problem with you," Rin says.

"Yes he does," Haruka says.

"Well, you have a problem with him too," Rin says, starting to sound defensive, and Haruka bristles even though he knows he has no right to.

Rin lets out a breath, shakes his head. He sets down his popsicle stick. "You both have really big egos, you know that?"

It stings to hear it now, like insult to injury, though Rin might be trying to lighten the mood when he says, just barely smiling: "Maybe that's why I get along with the both of you even if you can't get along with each other. I know how to deal with big egos." The dig is still there though; Haruka hears the warning, and doesn't refute it.

"I'd like it better if we could get along with each other," he mumbles. He really can't deny it anymore – he's still bothered by Yamazaki being bothered by him. Maybe if he hadn't seen Yamazaki yesterday it would have had time to fade away, but that chance has been ruined.

"Have you tried?" Rin asks, kind of softly and kind of sadly, kind of like having to watch two of his friends dislike each other so obviously has hurt him more than he's let on.

Haruka tries to imagine what it would be like if Rin and Makoto treated each other with thinly-concealed aversion, and for a moment feels his heart go cold. "He never told me what his problem with me was," he says, still reluctant to admit to any wrong.

"And you never asked, I'm guessing."

"He thought that you would stop taking competitive swimming seriously if you kept swimming with me," Haruka says quickly. "I didn't ask him about that, but it was easy enough to gather."

Rin looks across the street. Crosses his ankles and leans back on his hands. His eyes are narrowed like he's looking for something again, only there aren't books in front of him now.

"He was jealous of you," he says. "And I probably shouldn't tell you this because it's pretty personal for him, so don't go rubbing it in his face or anything."

"I won't," Haruka says. "It's not like I'm going to see him anytime soon."

Rin quirks a lopsided smile, still looking out and away. "True. Okay. Well, basically, he didn't get you. You never seemed to try – to win, to work on a team, to do things right. It all just happened for you. He didn't get how you could have something, something people work  _hard_  for, and not seem to take it seriously or work for it at all. Like you were taking it for granted. Not my words," he says, holding up his hands. "Not his either, but you know, I'm good at reading him."

Haruka looks down at his knees. "I kind of knew all of that, I think."

"Well, that's what it is. He took it as a kind of personal insult, because he's always felt like he's had to work harder and get better because he's never thought he's good enough."

"But he's really good," Haruka says, glancing at Rin.

Rin shrugs. "Yeah, but some people just want to be better so badly that it never feels that way. Plus, you were better than him at freestyle and you acted like you didn't even care that you were better, which really got to him." There's a reminiscing look to his expression, not something happy. Eventually he says, "It's just jealousy, Haru. He wants this so bad and you didn't know what you wanted, and it bothered him having to see that all the time because he felt stuck on your level."

"It's not his business…" Haruka says quietly, kind of edgily, wondering if they're still just talking about him and Yamazaki.

"Yeah, well, he's always cared too much about competition. Another thing you two have in common," Rin says, sounding lighthearted for a moment. But then he sighs. "Rei and I got over our differences."

But Haruka doesn't have a relay spot to give Yamazaki like Rei had for Rin, and as the language of swimming is the one he's most fluent in, he doesn't know how else to extend a peace offering. He turns his popsicle stick around in his fingers; his hands are sticky and gross, and he regrets bringing up the conversation in the first place.

"You know, he's not a bad guy," Rin says. "At all."

"I know," Haruka says, eyes still on his popsicle stick, and this much is true. He trusts Rin's judgment in people, even if he can't adopt it himself. "He's your friend, so I know he's not."

He wants to ask:  _Does he know?_ Does Yamazaki know about Rin's feelings for him? Probably not, but if Yamazaki  _did_  know, would he dislike Haruka more, or less?Haruka can't imagine Yamazaki being thrilled, but does that make him indignant, or does it make him self-righteously pleased?

Rin yawns; Haruka looks over in time to see his eyes go watery.

"You're still tired," Haruka says, taking the chance to steer the conversation away from thoughts he doesn't want to examine yet.

"Hm?" Rin drags a hand up his forehead, pulling back the bits of hair that have fallen into his face. "Yeah. I didn't sleep bad last night, but they say it's like the sleep you got two nights ago that affects you or whatever."

"Maybe you should go home and sleep."

Rin stretches his hands over his head; something pops, and he gives a satisfied groan. "I still need to train today. I'm taking tomorrow off, though. Don't tell Gou, she'll think she won. I was already planning to."

"You're working hard," Haruka says, which is easier than expressing his admiration outright.

Rin looks like he's trying not to smile. "Yeah, well, you know what's next summer, right?"

There's no way Haruka wouldn't know. "You're aiming for it."

Rin drops his eyes to the ledge, spins the popsicle stick around. "It's a slim chance, but still a chance."

"You have a year. That's a long time to train."

"Yeah." Rin's popsicle stick shoots off the ledge, and he stares at it on the ground for a few seconds before saying, "I told my coach. He says he'll train me for it, if I can prove I'm up for it."

"But you'd be swimming for Japan."

"He says he doesn't care about that as much as he'd just be proud to have one of his swimmers get there. There are other guys on the team though that'll probably try too, though."

"Be careful," Haruka says.

Rin looks at him, eyebrows scrunched up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't push yourself too hard."

"Okay…"

"Don't injure yourself."

Rin breaks into a laugh, shakes his head. "I'm motivated, not reckless."

"Hm."

"I'm not  _as_  reckless as I used to be. I'm more motivated, and less reckless."

Haruka gives a little puff of a laugh through his nose. It feels like Rin will sling an arm over his shoulders at any moment, teasing and taunting, and Haruka will pretend to complain. But Rin doesn't touch him, and Haruka is very aware of this. He's aware of it as they walk back toward the rec center, the careful maintenance of the space between them, of Rin's hand safely in his pocket. There's just the occasional shoulder-bump, which hardly has intention behind it.

So instead of this he thinks of Rin and the Olympics, and feels the amazement growing. To think that he's known Rin for so long, and is watching him get closer and closer to his dream… Rin has always amazed him, and will probably always inspire him.

But if he wants to keep racing with Rin…if he wants to be able to, and to have it actually be a race…he has to keep swimming harder on his own. It hits him, suddenly and blindingly in a way it hasn't before: Rin will keep getting better, and it's become an unspoken promise that they'll race each time Rin returns, but Haruka wants to give him a race worth looking forward to. He doesn't want to let Rin down by giving him a race that's no challenge at all.

He doesn't want to let  _himself_  down by giving Rin a race that's no challenge at all, but that means he can't stop getting better either.

He wonders if this is possible anymore. He knows, from today, that he wants it. He knows from yesterday that he wants it. He doesn't ever want to stop being able to race Rin.

"I'm gonna be at the rec center a lot in the mornings," Rin says, the first thing spoken in a while. "So…I'll run in to you?"

Haruka reads the real question on Rin's face:  _Do you want me to run in to you, or not?_

"Yeah," Haruka says. "I'll be there Tuesday morning."

"Okay," Rin says. He's more subdued now; maybe it's because they've just rounded the corner into the parking lot, and Haruka's going to pass straight by for the train station. "Well…" he says, coming to a stop.

"Thanks for yesterday," Haruka says quickly.

Rin looks confused, and then like he understands, and then confused again. "You already said that."

"I did?" Haruka says blankly. And then he remembers – the bleachers, Gou teasing Rin, the swoop in his stomach. "Oh, yeah." His face feels a little hot, but he acts like he doesn't notice. "I forgot."

"Good job," Rin says jokingly. "But you're welcome. I'm glad you liked it."

"Yeah," Haruka says, not really sure what to say anymore. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Haruka nods, and Rin tries harder to stifle his smile.

"Well, I'm gonna go in. Wanna make sure I get a lane."

"Okay," Haruka says.

"Okay." Rin takes a step back, lifts a hand. "See you, Haru."

"See you on Tuesday," Haruka says. He watches Rin cross the parking lot – long strides and a lightness to him like he's been caught on a draft – and take the steps two at a time, waits until Rin is just a smudge of bright red hair through the glass, before he turns away too.

The longer they're together, the more Haruka realizes there is no more 'normal' for them, and things won't 'go back' to anything, but what they're becoming might be something he's okay with. He has three weeks to find out.

 


	13. Red (Summer - part 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: tries to decide if rin's hair should canonically be that red or if he dyes it. me: what the hell i'm pretty sure i described him as having red eyes in chapter 1.
> 
> More seriously, thanks for being patient, I know this chapter took a while. I'm Busy with a capital B. Also: I've been really agonizing over making this decision, but I'm going to have to make a disclaimer that from now on I may not get back to your comments every time you leave one. I feel really guilty about this - I love reading what you guys have to say, even if it's a short thing saying you enjoyed the chapter, and I LOVE communicating with you guys and have done my best to respond to each and every comment I've gotten. But I've gotten to the point where (luckily - and I'm super grateful for this) there are a lot of people reading this story, and quite a fair number of you are actually giving feedback, and sometimes that feedback is really in depth! My way of working used to be to answer all comments before starting the next chapter, but it got to the point where I'd stress over giving everyone an adequate reply (I don't want to half-ass talking to you!) and it just slowed me down and I got really down on myself. I don't know if it's normal for fanfic authors to reply to comments often, but I wanted to be able to, and I don't think I can. So please know I read each of your comments, and I truly gain so much motivation from them - they are so heartwarming and can legitimately make me super emotional. I'm not saying I won't reply EVER AGAIN, but that my replies will probably be more scattered. I hope you understand!

"Haru-chan, Coach Zaki is the coolest girl ever," Hiro says on Monday morning. He's sitting with Haruka at the corner of the pool nearest the bleachers, kicking his feet in the water and waiting for Ishikawa-san to get out of the shallow end so they can leave.

"What about your mom?" Haruka asks.

Hiro gives him an incredulous look, made comical by the goggle imprints around his eyes. "She's not a girl. She's my  _mom_."

"Oh. You're right," Haruka says, nodding seriously.

"She's so strong. I want muscles like her someday," Hiro says, clearly back to talking about Zaki. "Haru-chan, your muscles are cool too, but Coach Zaki's are cooler 'cause she's a girl and mostly girls don't want muscles."

Not sure if there was a compliment hidden in there or not, Haruka decides to go for the simple response. "Zaki really likes swimming."

"Yeah, she's so good! Classes are so fun, I can't wait for Saturday again. I still like swimming with you, too," Hiro adds, like he doesn't want to hurt Haruka's feelings.

"Thanks," Haruka says.

"You're welcome." Hiro scrambles to his feet once Ishikawa-san is out of the pool. "Okay, I'm going now. My grandma's gonna take me to look at video games today!" He grins widely, showing off another missing tooth, and snatches up his towel.

Haruka waves him off – waves at Ishikawa-san as well – then pulls down his goggles and slips back into the pool. He's been here since early morning, doing laps long before Hiro and Ishikawa-san showed up. He has to work on his times, has to polish off some of that rust. He has no one to help him, which makes him miss Gou – not just for her stopwatch but her no-nonsense honesty (she never would have let him get so rusty). He does his best to track the time on the seconds hand of the massive clock mounted above the visitor's entrance, which has given him some idea of where he stands.

Slow. Too slow.

Of course it had been  _inevitable_ that he'd fall off his form, but all the time that has passed since he's last seen competition seems to have happened in the blink of an eye, now that he's on the other side of that blink, and not completely without regret.

He's been swimming, but he'd been tired. Tired of school, tired of wondering what to do. He still doesn't know what comes after this summer, but he has a purpose for now, a genuine good use for himself. Now that he has the energy to spare, it feels like it's time to focus on swimming again. He's ready to get better.

He's about done for this morning, though. His skin has pruned, his limbs are filled with the satisfied burn of muscles well-used, and he could use something to eat. He unwinds with one more leisurely lap, and then leaves the pool room empty behind him.

In the locker room, he heads quickly to his corner, and once he's changed he heads quickly to the exit, glancing down each aisle he passes. He told Rin he'd be here Tuesday morning, but managed to forget about all the mornings he comes not for work, but just for himself and to see Hiro. He's prepared to see Rin tomorrow (he tells himself so, at least), but not today, and as cowardly as it is, he kind of wants to avoid any chance encounters.

On his way to the station, he spots Amano and Zaki heading his way.

"Yo, Nanase!" Zaki calls from three storefronts away, waving an arm high over her head while Amano continues looking broody with his hands in his pockets, though Haruka knows better by now than to write him off as such. "What's this, like, three days in a row I've seen you?"

Haruka wonders if the two of them have made a conscious effort to match. Sleeveless shirts, jeans, caps with the brims at an upward slant. It's a style Rin would approve of, Haruka's sure. Amano even has his hair loose, though it's much longer than Zaki's.

"By yourself today?" Zaki asks when they come together on the sidewalk, in front of a clothing boutique that has wheeled its sale racks outside – fluttery looking dresses and blouses in soft shades that are all almost white.

Haruka nods. "The pool was empty when I left."

"Perfect," Zaki says. She thumps Amano on the chest with the back of her hand (he turns a slight frown on her, but she doesn't see). "We're gonna go train some. I'd offer you an invite but it looks like I'm too late today. Sometime, though." She starts to pass him by, clearly eager to get swimming, and says over her shoulder, "The offer's still open. Reiji, come on."

"She's tiring," Amano says in an undertone to Haruka, like he has to salvage some pride at being ordered around, though he shows very little indication of actually minding. He nods his goodbye to Haruka, and sets off after Zaki (having to hurry, which is funny to see, his long legs giving him little advantage over her quick stride) and their two groups are separate once again.

There's something in the air; Haruka notices it now, as he finishes the walk to the station. Cool and beachy today, possibly signaling something blowing in over the ocean that hasn't quite touched land yet. It makes his step feel lighter.

Though maybe he's just happy to have run into friends, because how nice it is to know he can still make them, that there are people he met on his very own who see him and would be happy to see more of him.

* * *

He's tidying up the living room when the vacuum bumps into something beneath the table. He shuts it off, and as the whir dies down he kneels down to retrieve whatever forgotten thing he'd shoved there who knows when. Only when he finds it, he's surprised he'd forgotten it.

It's the notepad he'd drawn in. Or scribbled in, more like. The pencil he'd refilled with the rainbow lead Makoto gave him sits in the spiral rings, though he never ended up using it. The open page is hectic with gray lines. It's like looking at a picture representation of what his mindset was at the time. Ugly, unhappy, desperate for something.

What would it be now? He has a whole long afternoon ahead of him, with nothing to do.

He shakes the pencil free, flips to a new page, crosses his legs into a comfortable position, and realizes he has zero ideas. So he just touches the pencil down at the corner of the page, then drags one blunt line diagonally to the opposite corner. It comes out green, but with the slightest edge of red. From the end of this line he draws another straight up - it's perfectly two-toned, half blue and half red.

He goes on and on, each new line coming from the end of the previous one. He doesn't know what he's doing. He isn't drawing anything, it's just a bunch of lines, it's just crosshatching colors. A child could do something more impressive. (He's not going to tell Makoto how much fun the rainbow pencil is – the strokes go from green to blue to red to any mix of the three, and maybe he should be worried that he finds it so hypnotic.)

The lead wears down rapidly, and the page fills up just as quickly. He hears the sound of children racing each other up the steps through his open patio door, the slapping of their sandals against their heels and against the cement – and what could be a better sound to sum up summer? A dog barks in someone's yard, sounding both near and far away. If he really listens, he can actually hear the ocean; a white noise his brain is so used to it computes as nothing, and he wonders if this happens to the sound of roads in big cities, though he doesn't think it ever would for him.

He starts lightly filling in the shapes made by his criss-crossing lines, three- and four- and five-sided things that make him think of geometry lessons. He's pretty sure he had a coloring book like this when he was in first or second grade, with abstract mosaics printed on thin paper meant to end up looking like stained glass once they were colored in. His mother used to put them in the top panels of the kitchen windows, and when the light came in in the morning the counters would be spotted with jewels.

He uses a color per space, one-third side of the lead. There's something satisfying in watching the blank spaces slowly turn to jewels of their own – rubies, emeralds, sapphires, or generic shades of them anyway, Red and Green and Blue. He works with his elbow on the table and his cheek on his fist, the pencil quietly scritch-scratching away. He finishes, and sits back, and looks at what he's done.

It isn't very pretty, but he feels oddly proud of it. Accomplished, maybe. He's been sitting for a long time, and has completed something, which is a simple pleasure.

It strikes him that the color that appears most is red – it fills up more spaces than the other two colors combined.

Red like Rin's hair.

He gets to his feet, rolls his shoulders. His neck has gone stiff. He hesitates, then shuts the notepad and slides it back under the table, before unplugging the vacuum and putting it away.

* * *

Makoto answers the door before Haruka's knuckles can hit it a third time.

"Ready to run?" he says to Haruka, smiling the way he does when he's really tired or really stressed – extra wattage, too bright.

Haruka hears the twins come thundering up. They squeeze their way into the doorway, and Ran says, grabbing onto Makoto's arm, "Can we come too?"

"You wouldn't be able to keep up for long," Makoto says gently, though Haruka still hears the refusal there. The twins pout and grumble and slink away. Haruka hears Ran snap something at her brother.

"They've been arguing ever since they got back from school," Makoto says, stepping out and shutting the door behind him.

"How are you?" Haruka asks. Mondays are often the toughest for Makoto, and today seems to be one of those days.

"Oh, you know." Makoto makes an airy gesture with his hand, and they start down the stairs. "Oh! I'm going to apply for a home-stay, for when I'm abroad. I spoke to Rin about it."

"When did you talk to Rin?" Haruka says, a bit more insistently than he intended.

"He was over for a bit earlier. I get out of class earlier this week because of exams. We studied English."

"Hm," Haruka says. He's maybe just a bit disappointed that Rin didn't think to stop by, and maybe just a bit relieved.

They run along the sand today instead of going through town, both relishing the extra challenge, heels sinking low. There are clouds over the ocean, but they're a pale gray, not very thick, and they sit stagnant. The air still smells that extra bit fresh though; maybe just a drizzle out over the water. Their shoes fill quickly, and they empty little sand piles onto the rocks before coming back to the main road.

"Oh yeah, Mom went grocery shopping today, so you're invited for dinner," Makoto says on the way back. "Actually, Ran said that we should invite you for dinner.  _Actually_ , Ran said we should invite you  _and_  Rin for dinner, but Rin said he couldn't stay that late." He smiles at Haruka. "So if you don't come, Ran will be sad."

"Sure," Haruka says, impervious to the guilt trip but happy for a family meal nonetheless.

Makoto seems happier too. The run has left him in good spirits, windswept and invigorated. "I had this weird dream the other night," he says as they head back up the stairs. He starts to laugh, holds up a hand to signal that he has more to say, and Haruka waits for his giggles to subside. "I had this dream that you, me, and Rin were trying to catch this giant balloon elephant before it popped, and the longer we took the more it inflated."

"Oh," Haruka says. It sounds like one of the stories Ran likes to make up and have him draw sometimes. "Did it pop?"

"Haru, have some faith in us! And no, it didn't. Rin tried to build a net out of his shoelaces, but they were too short and he somehow accidentally tied his shoes together. I don't know what you ended up doing, but I chased the balloon to Tokyo and woke up right when it was about to float into Rei's dorm building."

"Maybe you shouldn't study so hard," Haruka says after a few moments.

Makoto laughs loudly, head tipping back. "Maybe that's it. It was a stressful dream, Haru."

"You really don't remember what I did?" Haruka asks, because truthfully he's quite curious.

"Hm… Actually, maybe you were the one who tied Rin's shoelaces together."

Haruka doesn't find this particularly amusing, but Makoto laughs so hard that he staggers on the steps and Haruka has to grip his arm to keep him from tumbling all the way back down.

* * *

The next morning Haruka and Zaki are put to work setting up one of the conference rooms for a meeting scheduled for the afternoon. They have to clear the entire floor, then there's vacuuming, then there's pulling the desks back in through the double doors and arranging them according to the hastily-drawn diagram on the whiteboard.

("Someone had time to plan this and draw it out, but not to actually do any of it?" Zaki grumbles with a dirty look at the board when they first start working.)

And then there's the matter of chairs, and the matter than many of the chairs already used in the room are wobbly, which apparently won't cut it for this meeting. So Haruka and Zaki take a trolley from empty room to empty room, collecting suitable chairs and wheeling them back in stacks.

"What kinda meeting do you think this is?" Zaki asks, taking a break from the manual labor to doodle flowers on the whiteboard.

Haruka straightens the last of a row of chairs. "I don't know, but they probably won't want any of their markers to be out of ink."

Zaki makes a  _hmph_  sounds and caps the pen. They begin relocating the unsuitable chairs to the rooms they've borrowed better ones from, starting with the conference room next door and then the odd small meeting room here and there, being careful not to run down rec center members in the process.

"Oh. Hiro thinks you're really cool," Haruka tells Zaki (just remembering it himself) as they wheel the last cluster of chairs out of the room and shut the doors.

Zaki grins at him over the stack of chairs. "Really? He talks about you all the time. Haru-chan this, Haru-chan that, Haru-chan could pick his nose in front of me and I'd think it was the most awesome thing in the world." Haruka gives her a blank stare and she laughs. Then, more seriously, she says, "He's a real good swimmer for his age. Like, real good."

"He is," Haruka agrees, flattening himself against the wall and pulling the trolley closer to make way for the aerobics class spilling out the door across the hall.

"He could be great for a team if he's still interested in a few years," Zaki says offhandedly, focusing more on the people passing by. Once the hall is clear, she pulls the trolley back to the center and gets them moving again.

Haruka wonders if Hiro will want to join the club here year-round like Ishikawa-san said he could a while ago. If he does, the next question would be whether he grows out of his love for swimming by the time he's old enough to compete, or just grows to love it more. Haruka won't lie to himself – of course he's curious about the latter.

But Hiro's young and just wants to have fun, and he swims because he likes it. That's most important. That's all that matters, really.

They round the corner for the main hallway, and Kaji-san calls, "Chiburi, man the desk for a moment, will ya? Nanase, you can help too."

"Oh man," Zaki sighs. They settle the trolley beside a drinking fountain and head over. Kaji-san gives Zaki the chair behind the desk, and gives Haruka a file full of papers and asks him to "just see if you can make sure they're chronological, we've got to be real organized to get all this stuff onto the new digital database doohickey and it's tedious work, I'm tellin' you."

"What do I do if it rings?" Zaki asks, looking at the phone as though it might animate and try to bite her.

"Well, you answer, and then you ask them real polite to please hold, and I'll likely be back before you even get a single one."

"I hate phone calls," Zaki says moodily once Kaji-san has left them. "Especially when there's no caller ID."

But the minutes pass and there are no phone calls, just a few patrons dropping off forms or picking them up. Zaki leans her face against her hand and spins her chair idly side to side, sitting up straight each time someone approaches, slumping again once they pass by. Haruka flips through the file – some sort of record of memberships dated three years ago.

"Oh hey, I saw your friend yesterday," Zaki says suddenly, spinning right around to face Haruka. "Matsuoka. He came in right after Reiji and I got here."

"Oh," Haruka says, putting a form dated August the second after one dated August the first. "Okay."

"So, you guys have known each other for a while or what?"

"Yeah," Haruka says, eyes on the papers and not on her. "Since elementary school."

Zaki laughs under her breath, though Haruka doesn't know what's funny. "Speak of the devil," she says, and Haruka looks up.

Rin is inside, in the hallway, coming their way; the front door clatters shut behind him.

"Yo, Matsuoka," Zaki says when he's close. "Training again?"

"Every day," Rin says, stopping at the desk and leaning his elbows on it. He wears his cap turned backwards, and a backpack on one shoulder. He looks past Zaki at Haruka. "Hey, Haru. How's work?"

"Fine," Haruka says. He has a sudden acute awareness of the shape of the folder in his hand, a sudden lack of trust in his motor capabilities, and the growing worry that he's going to drop the papers all over the floor.

And then Rin smiles at him, and his heart races.

"All right, well, I'll see you later. Gotta hit the weights."

In the same smile Rin is off, down the hall with the backpack swinging idly off his shoulder. Haruka feels distinctly wrong-footed – there was definitely a step missed between Rin being here and Rin being there and his heart is still going erratically, struggling to adjust.

The phone rings.

"Oh, shit," Zaki says, jerking away from it. It rings again, then a third time.

"You should answer that," Haruka says, once Rin has disappeared into the locker room. He finds his place in the paperwork – August third – and concentrates very hard on the fact that four comes after five, and then there's six.

"Iwatobi Recreation Center," Zaki says, with a burst of pep Haruka would never have fathomed her capable of, "Will you hold, please?"

* * *

He spends the last hours of work determinedly not looking into the weight room each time he passes, and though he'd planned to take his swim bag home today to clean it out, once his shift ends he clocks out and instead goes straight for the exit.

He's halfway down the block when he hears Rin call after him ("Haru! Hold up!"), and he stops so suddenly he almost falls forward.

Rin is just coming out of the parking lot, is running, cap sitting precariously backward on his head, backpack flying off one shoulder. Haruka remembers Makoto's dream and hopes Rin's shoelaces stay tied.

"Hi," Rin says breathlessly when he catches up. He hitches his backpack up. "Are you going home?"

"Yeah," Haruka says. And then he forgets how to speak completely.

"Me too," Rin says. His shirt is soaked at the neckline; the knot of his hair drips onto it. He must have really rushed to catch up.

"Okay," Haruka says, and, fearing awkward eye contact and immobility, he turns and says, "Let's go."

The walk to the station feels so much longer than it is. Haruka tries to look straight ahead, but his peripherals betray him and it takes a great deal of willpower to keep his gaze forward. He wants to look at Rin to see if the awkwardness he feels is visible on Rin also, but if it's there he doesn't actually want to see it. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, like he's tried to swallow something he hasn't chewed enough.

"Nice weather today," Rin says, as they head up the steps onto the platform.

"Yeah," Haruka says. "The sky's blue."

Rin lets a laugh out through his nose. "Are you being serious or are you making fun of me?"

"I'm being serious," Haruka says, because it's true, which makes his comment all the more tragic. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Rin's hair is red, his brain is unequipped for this.

"It's supposed to rain soon," Rin says.

"Oh."

"Anyway, it's your birthday soon too."

Haruka looks over. They stop beneath the awning; the station isn't very busy, though a couple of birds twitter around on the power lines up above. Rin leans against a support beam, hands in his pockets. The tumult in Haruka's chest makes him want to teleport away, as usual, though there is a streak of defiance in there, a fledgling desire to see how much tumult he can handle.

"Yeah, I guess," he says.

"In two weeks," Rin says. "On the dot. You gonna do anything?"

Haruka thinks for a moment. "I have work."

Rin shakes his head, smiling. "That's all? No birthday party?"

Haruka shrugs, and Rin says, "Yeah, I know, you don't care about parties. Still, it's a big birthday, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Haruka says.

"Well, yeah. Your first birthday in the real adult world."

"What does that even mean?" He really is having a hard time following the trail of this conversation – Rain? His birthday? Why had Rin run so hard to catch up to him?

"You're out doing your own thing. Not in school anymore like the rest of us where you have professors and coaches and grades and stuff to give you direction." Rin seems to finally realize the growing water stain at his neck, because he takes off his cap and squeezes out his hair. Several fat droplets splatter to the concrete, and then he shakes out the collar of his shirt and replaces the cap and says like nothing happened, "I dunno, it's just kind of impressive."

Unexpectedly, Haruka finds himself snorting on a laugh. "I don't feel any different."

"It makes you adult-er, probably," Rin says, pushing off the beam, looking encouraged by Haruka's almost-laugh. "Then again, you've always kind of been ahead of us there."

Haruka hasn't heard from his parents in a little over a week, though he hasn't tried to contact them in that long either. Which means one end will reach out soon, which is how it's been for a while, which is fine. "I have a job. That gives me –" he tries to remember the word Rin used "– direction."

"Yeah, well, anyway," Rin says. "My point is, you should do something for your birthday."

"Do you have any ideas?" Haruka says.

Rin's eyebrows go up, and his smile gets a little wider. "I could think of some, if you want."

The smile is inviting, invites Haruka's own, though his feels like the smile of someone who doesn't know if they should be smiling or not. "I don't know if I'd trust any ideas you came up with."

"What, why?" Rin says, pretending to be offended. "What's wrong with my party ideas?"

"They would probably be too extravagant."

"Are you saying I'd pull out all the stops for you?"

"Would you?" Haruka says. He feels like he's asked something daring. There's a thrill, and a renewed shot of nerves.

Rin laughs. The way he holds Haruka's eyes feels daring too – the way he holds them with so much light in his own. "I might."

Bells, a distant train horn. Haruka is glad for the distraction, because his own daring quickly crumbles under Rin's gaze. Rin can make an  _I might_  sound so much like a  _Yes_.

The train is on the other side of the tracks, which makes Rin on the wrong side to catch it, so they just watch in silence as it stops, and waits a minute, and sets off again. The backpack hanging off of Rin's shoulder touches Haruka's arm.

"I guess I should get over to the other side," Rin says, but he makes no move to leave. A moment later, he says, "Or I guess I'll just go after you've left. Would be awkward otherwise."

Haruka imagines staring across the tracks at each other, too far to talk, to close to pretend the other isn't there.

"Thirsty?" Rin says. He nods toward the vending machine.

Haruka has a vague memory of hot coffee at a cold station, and of Rin's arm around him, but he can hardly place it. Was it before he knew about Rin's feelings, or after? And maybe that contact was something he made up after the fact. He isn't sure when the last time he felt Rin's arm hanging off his shoulders was.

"I'm fine," he says.

His train is early. When it speeds in, Rin says, "I'll see you soon," and when it's stopped Haruka misses the feeling of Rin's backpack against his arm, but he's already said goodbye also and Rin is walking away toward the crossing.

He gets on the train, but doesn't want to go home yet. He wants to see Rin more.

* * *

He agonizes over that more than he'd like to the next day. And agonizing mostly means coming to a standstill in the middle of whatever he's doing – brushing his teeth, heading down the aisle in the supermarket, going up the stairs to his bedroom with a basket of laundry in his arms – and staring blankly ahead and thinking, with an underlying tinge of worry, _I want to see Rin more?_

The jittery feeling truly scares him. It's like some kind of runaway creature in his chest that he doesn't know how to calm down, like a racing heart except those can be slowed with even breathing, whereas breathing does nothing for this.

He sets the basket of clean sheets down in his room and tries to make his bed, but somewhere along the line he ends up lying on his side on top of the mattress, his pillow in his arms, feeling lifeless and overwhelmed. "This is annoying," he says, and then he feels stupid for talking to himself.

He's knocking on Makoto's door five minutes later, hoping that this is a day that Makoto is home early, and if so, if Makoto won't mind putting any studying to the side for a little bit. Any distraction will do to take Haruka's mind off of Rin, who right now is too big of a thought to handle.

When Rin opens the door, he feels for a moment like Makoto's playing a cruel trick on him.

"Hey Haru," Rin says, a juice box in each hand, sounding not at all surprised to be seeing him. He calls back into the house, "Makoto, it's Haru! We're studying English," he says to Haruka, as though Haruka had asked for an explanation. He opens the door a little wider, says, "C'mon, you can help," and heads back in, leaving Haru on the doorstep.

This has happened a few times in the last couple of days, Haruka thinks, following Rin inside. Rin detaches suddenly – there's nothing cold about it, but Haruka is collecting missed steps now, and they're adding up quickly. At work, a quick  _hi_  followed by a  _see you;_  then when the train had arrived, another abrupt goodbye; and right now, a welcome but with a back quickly turned.

He'd say it was nothing, except it's something he's noticed, and he's not good at noticing things. Something starts to sink slowly toward his stomach.

Makoto waves from the living room, pencil in hand, reading glasses on his nose. There's a workbook open at his feet, and a worn orange dictionary beside his knee; the feel is very study session-esque. Rin tosses one of the juice boxes at Makoto, who shoots out his free hand to catch it.

"Thank you," Makoto says in English, and then in disheartened Japanese: "Can't I just ask someone to draw me a map if I have to ask them for directions instead of learning all these prepositions?"

"If you have a map you can ask them to draw  _on_  it," Rin says, joining him on the floor, and Haruka feels kind of like an afterthought. "But that's if you want to carry maps everywhere and if they even know how to read them. Oh, Haru, do you want a juice too?" he asks, stabbing his straw into his juice box.

Haruka hasn't sat down yet, so Rin cranes his head back to look at him.

"I'm fine," he says, but Rin says, "Here, have mine, I'll get another," and pushes his juice box into Haruka's hand and gets back to his feet. He passes around Haruka, and Haruka gets a whiff of something pleasant.

Chemical ocean. Rin smells nice.

"Haru, you should've made me work harder in English class," Makoto complains, dropping his pencil into his workbook.

Haruka takes a seat, then takes a sip of juice – orange. There's a trend happening, oranges and Rin; the universe seems to be playing games with him. He hears Rin open the fridge in the kitchen, and focuses instead on Makoto's glum look.

"You already worked harder than I did," he says.

Makoto tries to punch his straw into his juice box but ends up bending the straw. He makes such a pitiful face that Haruka takes the juice box from and works the straw in himself, and hands it back so Makoto can take a mopey sip.

"How are exams?"

Makoto sighs. "I'm alive."

Rin returns then, folding himself down with a new juice box (Haruka wonders if they're depleting the twins' lunch supply) and turning Makoto's workbook around to take a look. His knee is inches from Haruka's own; Haruka tries not to tense up. He smells Rin's cologne – not too much, not so much that it's suffocating, but enough that he finds himself breathing just a bit deeper (trying to breathe it in?)

"You know, you're doing this right," Rin says to Makoto, tapping the pages. He turns the book back around. "Have a little more confidence in yourself."

Makoto looks dubious. "Really?"

"Definitely. Now find your eraser."

"What?" Makoto says blankly.

"Find your eraser," Rin says, grinning. Then he says something in English – all Haruka catches is his own name.

"What are you saying?" he says to Rin, because Makoto has just given him a very nonplussed look.

"Nothing, it's fine," Rin says with a flap of his hand, before repeating whatever he'd said to Makoto.

Still looking miffed, Makoto gets to his feet. "How far past Haru is it?" he says.

"What? I can't understand you," Rin says, pretending ignorance that Haruka feels full throttle.

Makoto heaves another massive sigh, and asks in English. Rin says something else, and Makoto starts walking slowly away, stopping at the dining table. At the next thing Rin says, he turns and goes toward the kitchen entrance. Rin calls a few more things; Makoto – soon inside the kitchen – calls back "Okay" each time.

Rin's giving directions, but they're more than just  _Go straight_  and  _Turn now_. Prepositions, Haruka thinks. He remembers the sound of Rin opening the refrigerator.

"Is it in the fridge?" he asks, quietly enough that Makoto won't hear, but Rin still looks at him with wide eyes and says, "Shh, Haru!" as though Haruka's just threatened to reveal his darkest secrets. "But no, it's not," he adds, and he finally quirks Haruka a grin.

So Haruka listens to Rin's directions and Makoto's answers without really listening. His eyes wander to Makoto's workbook – fill in the blank exercises that he remembers not being too enthralled by during English classes at Iwatobi – and then surreptitiously (he hopes) to Rin's knee, still very close to his own.

Rin is wearing shorts, and his legs are covered with fine red stubble – not very long at all but still longer than he'd ever let it grow in high school, the obsessive shaver that he was (and still is, Haruka thought, but maybe the hair on his head isn't the only thing Rin has gotten lax with).

Makoto comes back with the eraser in hand and a bemused expression on his face. "You hid it behind the vinegar in the bottom shelf in the cabinet above the sink. When did you even manage that?"

"Just now," Rin says smugly. "Good understanding. Haru, you better work on your English too. Soon Makoto and I will be able to talk about you behind your back, in front of your back."

Makoto laughs. "Hardly!"

* * *

They run early, before the twins get home from school and make leaving all the more difficult. Having Rin run with them feels like rediscovering something Haruka hadn't realized he'd forgotten about – just the ease of the three of them together, the way that while he has a dynamic with Makoto and he had one, is rediscovering one with Rin, the three of them together have their very own way of being.

He missed them, the feeling of the both of them with him together, the way his lungs fill with each exhale with a fullness that's more than just air, that's maybe relief and maybe joy and maybe some unfettered thing with no name. It's comforting the way the smell of home is, if you've been away for a while.

"How long do you guys keep this up for?" Rin asks after they've been running for a good half hour. The town is alive, friends walking home from school, siblings with younger siblings, ducking into shops for snacks, getting sidetracked chatting on street corners.

Rin doesn't sound the least bit tired. He's smiling like he feels the same unfettered thing Haruka does, windswept and full of brightness. Haruka's heart goes faster.

Back up the stairs toward his and Makoto's house afterwards, Haruka's breathing is heavy and his forehead is damp with sweat and clammy hair. Makoto is breathless also, but he's telling Rin the dream about the elephant balloon.

("And then Haru tied your shoelaces together so I had to run all the way to Tokyo to save Rei by myself!")

Rin bursts out laughing. "Haru, what the hell? Why does your dream self have no chill?" Some of his hair has fallen out of his ponytail, but he doesn't seem to have noticed. It hangs right in front of his ear, fluttered by each step he takes.

Back at the door, Makoto enters first and calls to announce their return. The twins come stampeding down the stairs, Ran calling, "Is Haru-chan with you?" When she sees Rin she lets out a shout of glee and – Haruka already forgotten – takes his arm and pulls him inside.

"Competition," Makoto mutters to Haruka, closing the door behind them.

"Shut up," Haruka mutters back.

Makoto helps Rin extricate himself from the twins before too long, and when Rin is heading out the door Haruka is too – Makoto has another exam to study for, and Haruka feels guilty for taking so much of his time.

Outside the front gate, Rin starts saying, "Guess I'll go catch a train –"

"I'll walk you to the station," Haruka says, startling himself with the offer.

Rin is startled too, eyebrows up, but he regains himself. "Wow, how chivalrous," he says, sarcastic but also a clear invitation for Haruka to join him.

Rin talks to him about his flight home, and Haruka is glad for it because it wards away any silences – he's sure Rin is doing it for the both of them. "I don't know what it was about them, but this airline had good pretzels," Rin says, or, "You'd think a plane full of sleeping people would be contagious, but there's always that one screaming kid," or, "D'you think if there was an emergency and you sat in the emergency exit row, you'd be able to get the doors open?"

He's very good at getting Haruka talking – very good at putting Haruka at ease even when Haruka isn't very at ease at all.

Because Rin had been just about to leave again, another quick detach. It's so different – different from their texting exchanges, different from their one long phone call, different from the Rin of just a few days ago, asking Haruka to spend more time with him. Haruka wonders what brought the change on, and so suddenly, if it was something he did…

What if Rin doesn't like him anymore?

For a second everything grinds to a halt, at least inwardly, because his legs are still moving and Rin keeps moving beside him but there is a kind of freeze taking over his brain. All he feels is a kind of stifling, looming dread.

And then the gears start turning again, and he dismisses that idea. He knows Rin still likes him. He  _knows_. He knows because of the cologne. He knows because the smiles Rin sends him are different from the ones he sends everyone else.

His heart is still racing, but he's feeling competitive with himself, wants to handle the feeling longer and wants to see how much more of it he can handle.

"This feels familiar," Rin says, once they're at the station. There's a vending machine near the route map, and Rin jerks his head in its direction and says, "Thirsty?"

"Chivalrous," Haruka says. "I'm fine."

Rin looks at him appraisingly.

"What?" Haruka says.

"Nothing," Rin says. He looks away, just barely smiling. "That was funny."

"You have some hair loose," Haruka says. And then, before he knows what he's doing, he has it between his thumb and forefinger.

His heart slams into his ribcage, a single thump he feels physically, and he's aware in a kind of panicked way that he has a second to decide what to do. But his mind is clear also, like he already knows what he's going to do, and so he tucks the hair behind Rin's ear and manages – by some stroke of composure he didn't know he possessed – to say, "There," and not feel his face turn hot.

The fates are on his side again, because the warning lights begin to toll and the crossing gates lower, and it's something he can focus on instead of the slack-jawed look on Rin's face.

His thoughts start racing then to catch up to his heart – mostly things like  _That wasn't like me_  and  _What was I doing?_ Also he kind of remembers the feeling of Rin's ear against his finger (it was very warm), and the backs of his fingers against Rin's hair (soft-ish, but also that brittle feeling that comes from chlorine), so he's only half-aware of the way they say their goodbyes. He doesn't think either of them is very eloquent. Rin really does look like he's been hit in the face.

He gets home, takes off his shoes, and heads up the stairs, all in a haze. It's only when his head hits the pillow that he realizes he's pitched himself onto his bed, the second time today. He feels restless, and giddy, and afraid, as well as an antsy need to hold something in his hands. He grabs his pillow and smothers his face in it.

_Oh god,_ he thinks, wanting very much to disappear from the typhoon his heartbeat has become, but also disappear into it, just let go and let it consume him.  _I like Rin._

And then, denial:  _No. I don't. It's just the situation._  Whatever that means. He's grasping at straws now. The inevitable is too heavy, too laced with implications, with change.

He lies in bed, pillow over his face, trying not to agonize but remembering the feeling of Rin's red, red hair in his fingers, and feeling a red, red burn in his chest. And so comes a terrified, relieved acceptance:  _Oh god. I like Rin._


	14. Wonderstruck (Summer - part 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience, and for all the support for the last chapter! Thank you especially to the anonymous person who sent me that really overwhelmingly kind message on tumblr earlier this week - you kicked so much inspiration into me to finish this chapter! This one's a bit shorter than usual, but I hope the content will make up for that! Oh, according to wikipedia, gomoku is a game similar to tic-tac-toe (if you know what that is) that can be played with pen and paper (or in this case, in the sand).

_I won't do anything_  is the first thing he decides. Because he's afraid – he's  _so_ afraid. Though he knows, rationally, there is little reason to be. The feeling is mutual. They like each other (and this is a magical thought, one that almost goes over his head, liking _each other_ , a two-way emotion, an open connection that offers so much possibility).

But he doesn't know what to do with that connection, that invitation to take a next step. He doesn't know how to like someone, doesn't like the aching, longing, resistant feeling in his chest. He wants to lock his heart down in self-defense, because he feels like it'd be very easy to get hurt now, easier than before, which is saying something because the two of them have hurt each other in so many ways already.

A little voice in the back of his mind chides him, saying that he's falling back on old, bad habits. Stagnancy. A fear of change. He agrees with it.

But it's only because this time he's been thrown into the change without knowing when he went from the previous step to this one. How does one go from liking someone as a friend to liking them as in  _liking_  them? Where's the boundary, what does it feel like to step across it – and when did he?

He feels like Rei would somehow be able to give the best explanation that would simultaneously make the least sense; Nagisa would say something profoundly simple and profound in its simplicity like, "There's no step, Haru-chan, you just are where you are."; Makoto would smile a lot and quietly and maybe give a little shrug and say "I don't know, it's different for everyone, isn't it?"

Gou…

Oh god, he likes Gou's brother. The thought of her knowing makes him hot and cold, much too anxious for just a what-if.

He isn't ready for any of them to know; he's hardly ready to know it himself.

But he does know it, and he also knows that he can't be a coward about this, not when it's been half a year since Rin put himself on the line with his whirlwind confession, and then left himself on the line. He'd been hurting but always still liking Haruka, never giving up on Haruka – and now that Haruka knows he likes Rin back, he feels the least he can give Rin is his honesty, if not outright than at least by not retreating.

* * *

He arrives at the pool later than usual the next morning, so he misses Ishikawa-san and Hiro. He contemplates getting in – the pool is empty – but decides against it, merely sitting at the edge of the deep end and letting the water swallow his feet.

He feels both bold and cowardly with what he's planning, but when the door to the locker room opens around ten minutes later, cowardice tries to win out. There is no place he could hide, though, and Rin is in the pool room already.

It takes Rin a few steps to notice him, but when he does, he stops abruptly. "Haru!" he says, a sound full of energy. And then he's walking again, flings his towel onto the bleachers on his way over. When he's in front of Haruka, though, he just gives a simple, reserved, "Hi."

"I waited for you," Haruka says. Rin breaks into the happiest smile, and it takes everything Haruka has not to do the same. God, how did he never know before that he liked Rin, when seeing Rin smile has always been so liberating?

Since he's already admitted to one thing, he keeps going. "I want to get better again, with my times. Is it all right if I train with you?"

"Yeah," Rin says, quietly but with an edge of giddy laughter. "Yeah, you can."

Except Haruka's hardly aware of practicing with Rin – and this may be a first, being unable to focus on swimming when he's actually swimming. Rin says some helpful things, says some things about times, probably swims with him some but honestly, truthfully, Haruka can't remember any of it afterwards. Time is strange again, as though it isn't happening. He knows they do most of their swimming with an empty lane between them, so as not to distract each other and so things don't turn into a series of impromptu races. Rin works on free and fly, and Haruka just works on  _faster_.

But then there's afterwards, when they're gathering their towels at the bleachers, and Rin's hand is suddenly around Haruka's arm, right above his elbow.

"You know, you're gonna have to work on this," Rin says, giving a playful squeeze.

Haruka whips around, and Rin freezes, grip loosening. He looks like he's waiting to be scolded, or to be pardoned. For being in the water for so long, his hand is very warm. Haruka both wants to fling himself away from it, and fling himself into it.

"I don't like weights," Haruka says, his voice seeming to come from elsewhere, not the empty-room feeling in his head.

Rin looks relieved, letting go of Haruka's arm. "That's not really the point."

They shower in neighboring stalls. Rin is on the outside, and he finishes first (makes sure to finish first, Haruka thinks) and heads to his locker with a "See you in a few," so that when Haruka finishes his own shower, he passes by an empty stall to head to his corner of the locker room. It still feels like Rin is holding onto his arm, like an itch he can't scratch (he tries to rub the feeling away, which does nothing).

_Calm down,_  he tells himself, tying up his shoes.  _Don't be obvious._

Rin is waiting by the exit again, and when he sees Haruka he gives a chipper, "Ready to go?"

Haruka figures they're just going to the train station (he thinks of yesterday and Rin's hair in his fingers and is very glad he's two steps behind so Rin can't see him trying to stay composed), so he's surprised when Rin stops suddenly at the bottom of the front steps.

"D'you wanna go get lunch?" Rin says in a rush. Haruka is still two steps behind, which makes him two steps up, and he can see the tenseness in Rin's shoulders.

He thinks  _Yes_ and  _No_ at the same time, and in his indecision Rin turns around.

He must see the hesitation on Haruka's face, because he says, "We can just, like, get something we can carry around and just, y'know, walk around or something."

Haruka can see how much Rin wants him to say yes. And he wants it too, wants to be around Rin, wants it so much he doesn't want it because it's just too  _much_  of a feeling.

"Okay," he says, because he'd promised himself no retreating.

"Awesome," Rin says, again looking relieved. He jerks his head, starts to smile. "C'mon, I have a place to show you."

Haruka feels the smile catching on his own lips, and he fights it off. "Where are we going?" he asks, falling into step beside Rin.

"You'll see," Rin says, with an elbow in Haruka's side. He pulls it back quickly, but still jokes, "Can't promise they'll have mackerel, though."

"Hmph," is all Haruka deigns that with. It keeps Rin smiling though – he looks like he wants to elbow Haruka again, but is resisting. Does he think he can't?

"It really is supposed to rain soon," Rin says eventually. They've made it a few blocks; Haruka hasn't really been paying attention to where Rin is directing them. There are apartments intermingled with commercial lots, pathways leading to hidden entrances of multi-story buildings, lots of greenery to cushion the homes from the storefronts just next door.

"Really?" Haruka says, humoring him.

"Really," Rin confirms with a nod. "Checked the forecast this morning."

"You sound like you're looking forward to it."

"I mean, it's not like I'm crazy about rain, but there's something about summer showers that feels like home. There was just one storm this entire year so far at school." They step off the curb to cross the street, and Rin flashes Haruka a grin. "There's actually a massive water shortage."

Haruka thinks that sounds awful, and says so.

Rin snickers. "Yeah, so I'm hoping for at least one summer shower while I'm home. I've got three weeks, so there's a chance." He looks around, examining the signs on the buildings, tone going musing. "But since I'm only here three weeks, I have to fit in all the important things when I can. Like the curry stand Gou said is around here somewhere. Aha!"

They turn a corner past a bland-looking multi-story of white walls and single-pane windows, and Rin points.

It's a part of town Haruka hasn't come across before. The road dead-ends and widens into a square, enclosed on the other three sides by the backs of the businesses around it and a sparse arrangement of young trees. Food stands – not many, just over half a dozen – make up a perimeter, some with portable dining areas set out before them, plastic and flimsy-looking metal tables and chairs with tablecloths laid out over the top. Customers line up at each stand, and when he and Rin get nearer Haruka can smell the savory scents of fast food.

"This only lasts for a couple weeks during the summer, apparently," Rin says, eyes fixed eagerly on the stands. "Gou says a friend from school told her about it; it's kind of like a community secret."

For a community secret, it's a popular one – people laugh over their meals, the air is rich with the smell of comfort food and with the easy feeling of camaraderie. The vendors are loud, taking orders and calling them out. Rin shifts on his feet beside Haruka while they wait in line, but it isn't an awkward movement as much as it's like he has a song in his head that he's moving to.

The vendor who serves them is a young man with half his hair buzzed and the other half grown long and tied into an off-center topknot. His right arm is splashed all the way down to his wrist with a combination of inks in jagged blacks and meandering shades of rainbow.

Under his breath after they've collected their food, Rin says to Haruka, "That was the  _coolest_  tattoo. Oh, you don't wanna walk?"

Haruka's pulled out a chair at an empty table without even realizing it. He hesitates. "I don't mind."

"Awesome," Rin says, taking the chair opposite. "Now I don't have to worry about getting food all over myself while I walk."

It's a small table. Haruka hooks his ankles around the legs of his chair.

"One of my friends at school got one," Rin says, stirring his curry. Steam rises thick and fast, and Rin looks ravenous. "A tattoo. Honestly, I think they're pretty badass."

"You can't get one though, right? If you want to swim for Japan."

"Wouldn't be the best idea. But," Rin says, making a proclaiming motion with his spoon and sending a bit of curry splattering onto the plastic tablecloth, "times may change."

"Do you want something like that?" Haruka says, nodding his head back toward the curry stand. He's imagining Rin with something big and vivid, blooming vibrantly across his skin. Rin and colors, Rin as art. It isn't that hard to imagine at all, actually. It would be a very Rin type of fashion statement, a permanent sleeve.

Rin shrugs. "It'd probably make me cry if it was too big." He starts shoveling food into his mouth, but he sends Haruka a look full of humor.

Haruka smiles, eyes lowering, and starts on his curry. The silence that follows is long, but not uncomfortable. It's filled with the voices of those around them, and the buildings feel like neighbors also, all multi-storied and blinking sunlight down at them.

"Would you ever get a tattoo?" Rin asks eventually, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not do you want one, but would you ever?"

"I don't think so," Haruka says. He isn't one for embellishments, after all.

"What about a piercing?"

"I don't think so."

Rin shakes his head, gives the quietest laugh. "What about a manicure?"

"Technically I've had one."

"What?" Rin's eyes go round with delight. "When?"

"Gou, on her birthday. She and her friends painted our nails."

"After you saw what she did to me, you still let her get to you?"

Haruka shrugs. "It was her birthday." And before Rin can say anything: "Would you get a piercing?"

"Yeah, I want one."

"You wouldn't cry?"

"No I wouldn't – hey, I resent that!"

"Sorry," Haruka says, not meaning it because neither does Rin. The teasing is tentative, like a fire sputtering into life. He wants it to burn brighter. "What would you get?"

"Hm, I dunno. You can switch out piercings, so." Rin shrugs.

Haruka imagines a shark tooth hanging from each of Rin's earlobes, like the one hanging from the black leather cord around his neck. A shark tooth, like the one Rin left behind on a summer night, that Haruka gave back on a cold winter's morning.

It's the very same necklace that's around Rin's neck right now.

Haruka feels a chill like that winter's morning wash over him. Guilt, and so much shame. That necklace represents, to him, one of the cruelest things he's ever done.

And yet, and maybe Haruka's just pulling this out of thin air, trying to mitigate his shame somehow – and yet, Rin wearing the necklace now kind of feels like Rin saying it's okay. Like Rin saying he has faith in him.

It's stupid but it would also be so like Rin, to try to make an unsaid gesture like that.

Rin empties his bowl, and then eyes Haruka's while pretending not to.

"Do you want some?" Haruka asks.

"Don't wanna take your food."

"Liar," Haruka says, pushing his bowl forward. Rin grins and digs in.

Somewhere along the line, Haruka's feet have unhooked from his chair legs. Rin's knees touch his beneath the table, and Rin doesn't move away, so Haruka doesn't either. Both of them leaning forward, eating from the same bowl, Haruka thinks,  _Okay, this is okay_.

Later, at the station, Haruka's train arrives first. Before the doors close, Rin looks up at him with hands deep in his pockets and says, "Thanks for lunch."

"I didn't pay for yours," Haruka says, confused.

"No, I mean, thanks for having lunch with me."

Rin smiles at him, the doors close, and Haruka thinks, heart lurching,  _Will I see you tomorrow?_

* * *

The answer is: not at the pool.

The summer rain Rin had been asking for falls the very next morning, warm and gentle onto Haruka's head and shoulders while he waits for his train home. It's a quiet Friday morning inside the compartment, an elderly woman with her book and a man with a computer open on his knees.

Through the window, the landscape passes in streaks of water and a close-sitting grayness, the clouds hanging low. Once Haruka is back off the train, the air smells like the sea but also wet leaves and the dust that's settled deep into the cracks of the sidewalks and the stone steps.

Though still warm, the rain is foregoing gentle to become something more intense, and most people have found refuge inside. The resulting silence and stillness, just the patter of water droplets on the ground and the trickle of them over his cheeks and down his neck, stealing beneath his collar, fill him with a sense of utmost peace.

Still, he's wiser than he used to be, and goes inside to avoid getting sick. He changes, scrubs a towel through his hair, opens the patio door just in case the cats come around (he doubts they will, but maybe he'd like their company).

He eats the leftover rice and vegetable stew Mrs. Tachibana had Makoto send over the day before, and sits and watches the rain. It's already clearing by the time he finishes his lunch. The sun tries hard to poke its way through the clouds, but only manages a few thin beams. Drops fall from the trees, and slowly, birds start up their choruses once more.

He's washing dishes when the doorbell rings.

Nagisa is on his doorstep like a ray of sunshine that hasn't been told about the rain. He's in a striped sleeveless shirt, and green board shorts, and hot pink rubber sandals, looking ready for the beach. He confirms he is when he says, "Haru-chan, c'mon, the water's gorgeous right now!"

"Don't you have school?" Haruka says, dish gloves still on and dripping suds onto the floor.

Nagisa breaks into loud peals of laughter. "Haru-chan, just 'cause you're not in school doesn't mean you have to act all old person on me. Mako-chan and I are out early. We just got here, c'mon!"

He makes Haruka drop his gloves on the spot, and then grabs hold of Haruka's wrist and pulls him outside. The air is muggy and still thick with the smell of rain.

At the base of the stairs to Makoto's house stand Rin and Makoto, with Gou sitting on the bottom step. Makoto and Rin are also dressed for the beach, in baggy swim trunks and loose t-shirts. Gou is in a long raincoat and long pants, though she's rolled the pants up to her knees.

"Hi Haruka-senpai!" Gou says, the first to notice him and Nagisa, and her wave has the other two turning.

"Don't you have school too?" Haruka asks her.

She smiles at him. "No classes today. I caught the first train I was awake for."

"Are you swimming in that?" Rin says, looking dubiously at Haruka's clothing – brown pants and the orange dolphin shirt he bought with the others not that long ago.

"I didn't know I was swimming."

"If it's Haru, he's probably wearing a suit under that," Makoto says.

"I'm not."

"Don't worry, he'll survive," Nagisa says, taking Haruka's wrist again and leading the way down the stairs.

Haruka contemplates arguing, but knows there's no real point. Not when his friends decide to ambush him, least of all when Nagisa is in charge.

"It's hardly a day for swimming," Gou says from the back of the pack. The stairs are still wet and the sky is only marginally lighter.

Rin hops down the steps to pull into the lead. "Are you kidding? It's perfect, isn't even cold." When he passes, he leaves a breeze of cologne behind, fresh like the smell of ocean salt. Haruka's breath comes a little shorter, and he averts his eyes from the back of Rin's head.

"You swimmers are so weird," Gou mutters, sounding fond and exasperated at once.

Nagisa lets go of Haruka to keep pace with Rin, and Haruka falls back a step to end up with Gou and Makoto.

"Haruka-senpai, you must have already swam today? If you swim any more you'll turn into a prune."

Makoto chuckles at this, and Haruka says, "Oh yeah, I guess you're right."

"Rin-chan, you smell so good!" Nagisa's saying up ahead.

"I always smell good."

"Um, no you don't. Remember that day we went running together and you forgot to put on deodorant beforehand and – mmph!"

The beach is, unsurprisingly, empty. The cloud cover makes the water a deep, dark aquamarine, and the low tide has the sand seeming to stretch forever to meet the sea.

"It really doesn't look warm," Makoto says, but he looks happy as always to be out of the house.

The sand is damp and cool beneath their feet, and Rin and Nagisa are already far ahead, dashing for the surf. Their whoops and shouts signal when they've touched the water. Gou gives a showy sigh, drops her bag where Rin and Nagisa tossed theirs about halfway in, and says, "Well, I'm sitting here."

It isn't long before she's collected a stick and is doodling in the sand, though, and playing gomoku against Makoto and Haruka (even as a team they can't beat her), and then doodling a mermaid tail onto Rin, whom they've buried in the sand.

"Nagisa, don't give me boobs!"

"They're not boobs, Rin-chan," Nagisa says, patting the vague mound that is Rin's left arm. "They're your mermaid shell swim top."

Rin makes a very undignified sound. "I don't want that! Gou, draw in my abs!"

"I'm sorry Nii-san," Gou says, crouched at the end of Rin's sand tail, "but I'm very busy with the finer details of your fin."

"Makoto."

"If you let your hair down, you'd look even more like a mermaid," Makoto says pleasantly.

Rin burrows his head back into the sand. "Don't you dare. Haru, draw my abs."

"No thanks," Haruka says. He's sitting beside Rin and pressing little pebbles into a design on his tail, and trying hard not to start smiling. The smell of cologne is gone. He doesn't know why Rin bothered wearing it – though, of course, he does. He feels fluttery, but also peaceful. Rin frowns judgingly at him, and he pretends not to realize.

"You guys are all traitors," Rin says.

"You asked us to bury you," Makoto points out, still looking at Rin's hair like he's formulating a plan.

"Yeah well, I bet I'm the prettiest mermaid you'll ever see."

"There there, Rin-chan," Nagisa says, with another pat. "Mermaids aren't real."

Makoto doesn't get to Rin's hair, but this is only because Rin works his head so far into the sand that when he breaks free of his tomb, he then has to go and dunk his head in the ocean to get all the sand out.

Afterward, he plops down beside Haruka and says, "So you really managed not to get in the water." Gou, Makoto, and Nagisa are scouring for shells at the waterline, their voices filtering vaguely back to where Haruka's sitting with everyone's bags.

"It's not that impressive," Haruka says.

Rin snickers. "It's a little impressive." His hair is loose and messy, sticks to his neck and the tops of his shoulders.

"Don't catch a cold," Haruka says.

"Haru, it's summer."

"Oh, you got your summer rain."

"Yup," Rin says, grinning. "That's one thing checked off my list."

Haruka watches the three near the water, not preoccupied with the fact that Rin is right beside him. Maybe it's because things are so tranquil right now, clouds and gray and the breath of the ocean, that he can think it more calmly than he did yesterday.

_I like Rin._

Right now, it's an okay feeling, even with Rin inches away. Liking Rin is…safe, because Rin won't turn him away. Liking Rin is comforting, because he can do it while simply sharing a silence with him.

He glances at Rin's fingers interlaced over one of his ankles and wonders,  _Now what?_  Answers elude him because he doesn't want any, not yet. Just more of this acceptance first.

"Gou-chan, look!" Nagisa shouts, and Haruka looks back toward the water.

Nagisa has a massive, knotted lump of seaweed in his hands, and he holds it out towards Gou as though it's something precious, a kitten maybe. She shrieks, he holds it closer to her, she runs, he runs after her, streams of seaweed flying.

"Nagisa, cut it out!" she yells, heels sending up sand behind her. Rin is doubling over in laughter. Makoto stands helplessly with the water rushing in over his ankles.

"C'mon Gou-chan, just touch it, it feels so cool!" Nagisa says. He's hardly gaining on her and she's hardly pulling ahead in their twisting sprint through the sand.

She's about halfway to Haruka and Rin when she trips and falls, face first, into the sand. Nagisa skids to a halt; there is a moment of silence as everyone stares. Gou pushes herself to her knees, face caked, and after another stunned moment she starts scrubbing the sand off.

Nagisa bursts out laughing. "Gou-chan, oh my god! Oh my god, Gou-chan! Oh my  _god!_ " By this point he's dropped the bundle of seaweed and has fallen to his knees beside her, howling in laughter.

(Rin is doing the same, pointing at his sister and falling into Haruka, his other arm clutching at his stomach. Haruka has to push back so as not to fall over, and the contact with Rin's skin makes his stomach do giddy flips.)

"I'm so going to get you back for this," Gou threatens. Her face is red but there is a dangerous gleam in her eyes. Nagisa, of course, either ignores it or doesn't notice it entirely, and drapes himself over her, laughing so much he apparently can no longer hold himself up.

"Nagisa! Get off of me!" Gou says, back forced into a bow, but she lets out an unmistakable snort of laughter. She fights against his dead weight, but slowly sinks back to the ground. "Help," she says feebly to any of the others, moments before she face-plants again.

In the end, it's Haruka who gives her a hand. Rin is actually crying tears of mirth, and Makoto watches the whole thing, seashells in his hands, like he really doesn't know if he wants to get involved in something so wild.

Gou and Nagisa squabble all the way off the beach, their heads like two fireballs catching the belatedly appearing light. Gou announced not long after getting all the sand off that she was going straight home – she has a lot of homework to do and has had enough of boys for the day. She hadn't been upset, just somewhat exhausted. Haruka doesn't blame her.

Nagisa surprised them all by announcing that he'd be leaving for homework too. ("What?" he said, pout-frowning. "You think being friends with Rei-chan this long hasn't rubbed off on me at all?")

Once it's the three of them left, Makoto gets a phone call – "Mom's sending me grocery shopping. You don't have to come, don't worry about it, I'm just going to get back to work afterwards anyway."

So this marks the abrupt dissolution of their group. Haruka and Rin wave Makoto off, and then Haruka looks again at Rin's wet hair and says, "Do you want a towel?"

"Um, yeah. Actually, can I change at your place?" Rin holds up his backpack.

They head up the stairs. The silence is still comfortable, though since Rin will likely be off to the station soon Haruka finds he wants to talk now.

"It was nice of Gou to come home early. She's really happy you're here."

Rin gives a small smile. "Yeah. With Rei in Tokyo I'm glad Nagisa's still here to make her do stupid stuff every now and then." He holds his tongue for a few moments, and Haruka can tell he has more to say. "She's gotten this preoccupation lately with growing up and stuff. Taking things seriously and being more mature and things like that."

"Oh. I hadn't noticed," Haruka says truthfully.

Rin shrugs. "In front of you guys she does it a lot less. It's not like I'm  _worried_  or anything like that, but just talking on the phone with her sometimes she'll get all Sudden Adult and I can tell she's got some sort of deal going on. I don't know if she notices it herself, but…" He rubs the back of his neck. "Man, this is kinda cheesy. But really, you guys are all great to her and I know I can trust you all with her, and it makes me happy to see her just goofing off with you guys. I'm glad for all of you guys, you know, looking out for her and stuff when I'm gone." He meets Haruka's eyes, looks embarrassed. "Guess I'm just being the overprotective big brother."

"She's lucky," Haruka says, meaning it wholeheartedly.

He doesn't really know what Rin's talking about – and of course he wouldn't, he doesn't talk to Gou on the phone like Rin does, doesn't talk to Gou all the time. Gou has always been one to take charge and play the leader, even back in high school, back when she was steadfastly Kou. She had to as their manager, and did so flawlessly.

But maybe Kou becoming Gou is a sign of what Rin's talking about. That, and calling Rin 'nii-san' – a little thing Haruka hasn't thought much about, because he didn't think it was his place to.

How interesting, what growing up does to people, what they interpret it as.  _New chapters,_  she had said on her birthday, or something along those lines. Haruka wonders what this chapter would be called.

Inside his home, Haruka picks up the dish gloves from the entranceway – "Don't ask," he says, and then, because Rin will, he answers with, "Nagisa." He gathers a towel for Rin and says, "You can shower if you want. You got in the water, right?"

"Thanks," Rin says, catching the towel when Haruka tosses it at him.

Haruka finishes the dishes, and with nothing much else to do, he gets his lesson plan out and looks it over in the living room. The kids want to try breaststroke, huh? They sure are ambitious – was he as ambitious at that age? No, of course not, he only cared about free.

Rin doesn't take long, coming back in clean clothes and hair tied into a bun.

"Are you hungry?" Haruka asks, shutting his notebook more eagerly than he'd like to admit.

"I'm fine. Should probably get going, Mom wants me to do the laundry and stuff," Rin says. He leans against the living room entranceway, not looking like he really wants to go. There is a warm look on his face as he watches Haruka, and it makes Haruka want to squirm.

"Do you want to bring something with you?" Haruka asks, getting to his feet. "Ran likes to give me snacks, I probably have something you could take."

"It's fine," Rin insists, laughing a little bit. He doesn't move though, doesn't push off of the wall. And then he says, "Haru," and his forehead pinches. "Um, let me ask you something."

"Okay…" Haruka says after a pause.

And now Rin does push off the wall, takes a few hesitating steps nearer, but he leaves a safe space. Hand on his neck, he raises his eyes to Haruka's with what seems like a fair amount of difficulty.

"Um…" Rin looks panicked; his gaze darts from Haruka, out to the side, down to the ground, and back. When he speaks, he speaks quickly. "Um, since I have to fit in all the important stuff when I can, um, hit me if I'm wrong about this, okay? You can totally hit me. But, um…can I kiss you?"

Oh.

Oh no.

The squirmy feeling erupts into something much more frightened. Haruka has a very vivid recollection of Rin's nose punching into his, in the middle of the night under the glow of his porch light. Hadn't Rin told Haruka to hit him then, too?

Rin looks just as stunned by himself now as he had then, but he holds his ground. Haruka thinks of escape, but of course there is nowhere to go. He isn't ready for this. Is he? The frenzy in his chest says no, but…

But if he's honest with himself, if he doesn't let the panic muddle him up, he knows this feeling. So similar to the thrum of pre-races, standing on the starting block tensed to dive in.

This is nerves, but greedy ones, ones that _want_ even though they're afraid that things might go completely wrong.

But they can't go wrong. He likes Rin, Rin likes him back; that must be enough. He wants to know what can happen, doesn't want to waste time hesitating anymore. He's sabotaged himself too much by hesitating.  _Just do something brave,_ he tells himself.  _Just do one thing that scares you._

He nods, a single downward jerk of his head. "Yeah," he says, and it sounds like most of his voice has tried to cling to his throat.

Rin looks overwhelmed, almost like he'd been hoping for the other answer because now he doesn't know what to do. He swallows, takes the few steps closer. Leans in, much more slowly than last time, much more carefully.

Haruka feels Rin's breath on his face, feels his heart sharpen with fear and excitement. He isn't ready, but he closes his eyes anyway.

And he feels a kiss. Rin's lips, carefully, tentatively, touching his and staying there. Whisper soft for a moment, and then Rin seems to gain some surety and presses just a bit more, and Haruka feels like there is not enough room in his chest for the flurry happening there. It hurts and it's incredible, how much this makes him feel.

Rin pulls back, and Haruka opens his eyes. Rin's cheeks are so red, and his expression is so amazed. He looks from Haruka's mouth, to his eyes, back to his mouth.

Haruka thinks,  _Again_ , and Rin must hear it or see it on his face, because he leans back in. He stops, nose just touching Haruka's, and says, "Can I?"

Haruka answers by tipping his head up, just enough to brush his lips against Rin's. He's afraid of himself, of his boldness. He's more nervous than he's ever been in his  _life_ , and in an absurd way he loves it. The touch sends goosebumps up his arms, and he says, mouth against Rin's, "Yeah."

Their second kiss is much like the first, in that they're both too stunned by the sensation of each other's lips to do more than just hold them together; but it's different in that Haruka feels Rin's fingers bump into his and clumsily lace them together, and he's unable to decide which treat him more tenderly – Rin's lips or his hands.

This time when Rin pulls back, they look at each other for a long moment. And then Rin laughs – it's quiet, jittery, speechless at his own luck. "Thanks," he manages to say, letting Haruka's hand go.

Haruka's face gets so hot he thinks it might be radiating. "Okay," he says, which isn't an appropriate response, but Rin just laughs again, messy breath.

"Um, I'm really going to go now."

"Okay."

Somehow, in some reality, Haruka follows Rin to the door, though his brain is still jammed on the sensation of Rin kissing him. Rin, right here, in front of him, they've kissed and the world hasn't fallen, in fact it seems suddenly brighter, everything more vivid. His lips tingle and it takes everything not to bite them, not to reach out and touch the back of Rin's neck, his shoulders. He's wonder-struck.

Outside, Rin turns. "I'll see you, then," he says, smiling the type of smile Haruka knows is impossible to stifle.

"Yeah."

"Maybe tomorrow."

"Okay."

Rin looks away, chewing on his lip. He might be searching for something else to say, but in the end he just lets his smile burst forth fully again and says, "Okay, bye."

"Bye," Haruka says, and numbly, once Rin is out of sight, he closes the door.

He touches his lips, and is amazed. He likes Rin, Rin likes him back. It's enough.

 


	15. Change (Summer - part 5)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, and for your support!

When Haruka arrives in town on Saturday morning, it's to Zaki, Amano, and Shimamura waiting for him at the station. There's something exceptionally cool about them – they all wear caps, all have sweatbands on their wrists, all lean casually against the route display, chatting idly. Zaki blows a bubble with her gum.

"Aw, Nanase, don't look so surprised," Shimamura says when Haruka stops in front of them. He claps Haruka on the shoulder. "It's the only day all four of us get to see each other, so we might as well spend as much time together as possible."

"Yeah," Zaki says, looking sidelong at Shimamura, "Everyone's company is  _so_  enjoyable."

"Right?" Shimamura says with a laugh. Zaki sets off for the station exit, and he bounds after her. "I think I'm the funnest person to be around, too."

Amano lifts his eyebrows at Haruka in a way that might mean  _Hello,_ and they head off after the other two.

At the pool, Haruka's beginner group abandons their parents in favor of squeezing in around him wherever they can on the bleachers. Mei sits right beside him and shows off the new hole in her mouth. "I accidentally  _swallowed_  it," she says, with such gravity she may as well be telling him her best-kept secret. The rest of the group hears and immediately exclaims their mingled shock and awe.

And then the whistle blows to mark the start of the lesson, and they whisk Haruka away to the pool steps. "Walk around the pool," he reminds them, and they all slow down enough to grab onto his arms and try to make him walk faster.

The forty minutes fly by, though he has to regain Mei and Yumiko's attention several times – Yumiko keeps asking Mei about swallowing her tooth because, as it turns out, she has just gotten a loose tooth herself. She even asks Haruka about it when it's her turn to be pulled around the shallow end during their kicking lesson.

"Have  _you_ ever swallowed a tooth, Coach Nanase?" she asks anxiously, fingers curled tight around Haruka's and feet kicking wildly, sending great splashes everywhere.

"No, I haven't," he says, figuring it might not be the best idea to tell her that he once fell asleep with a loose tooth and woke up the next morning without a trace of it in elementary school. "But I've heard that if you do on accident, it means you'll have good luck." Yumiko looks slightly mollified when they return to the wall.

During the break between lessons Haruka checks the bleachers, but Rin isn't there. He doesn't dare look once his intermediate lesson has started up.

Kasuko has yet another pair of little butterfly earrings – "Butterflies are my favorite," she explains, before she pulls her swim cap down over her ears. Luckily for Haruka, the twins have different colored goggles this week – Asuka's are yellow, Chou's are red. After they do their crawl and backstroke checkup, Taiki reminds him that they're supposed to start the frog stroke today. "You didn't forget, did you Coach Nanase?"

Haruka assures them that no, he did not, and near the end of the lesson they all file out to get kickboards from the stand. Back in the pool, Haruka shows them the kick, which several of them giggle over.

"You  _really_  look like a frog!" Taiki says, sounding very impressed.

The twins get a feel for it quickly and kick around the shallow end, while studious Noboru watches Taiki and tries to figure out why he isn't getting anywhere.

Taiki tells him, steering his kickboard in a haphazard circle around him, "You just gotta feel the frog, stop trying to think so complicated," and Noboru looks like this is the most confusing thing he's ever been told.

Haruka takes hold of the other end of Noboru's kickboard. "I'll pull you, so you can just focus on the kick," he says, and by the time the lesson is over Noboru is just as much a frog as the others.

"Let's do the frog arms next week, okay?" Taiki says when they all frog kick their way over to the steps, and Haruka says he'll think about it. One by one his students are wrapped up in towels and marched away, and as they go Noboru's mother sends a very thankful smile over her shoulder at Haruka.

And then, when they're all gone and he's collected a forgotten kickboard from the side of the pool, he dares to look at the bleachers, except his gaze doesn't even have to go that far. Rin leans beside the locker room door, arms crossed and smile looking like it wants to burst forth.

"I already swam," he explains when Haruka goes over to him. "Got here really early and then went to the weight room and lifted and stuff. I'm going to Makoto's to help him with English. Figured we could go together?"

"Yo, Matsuoka!"

Shimamura slaps a high-five into Rin's palm on his way into the locker room, and Rin looks a little bit stunned; stunned that he raised his hand in time for the high-five, too. But he gives an appreciative snort under his breath. "Okay…" Then he looks back at Haruka. "So, what do you say?"

Still soaking wet, kickboard still in hand, Haruka says, "That's fine. Let's go."

Shimamura tags along with them to the station, talking about the dance crew he's a part of and showing them the splotchy bruises covering both of his knees. Once he's boarded his train on the opposite side of the tracks, Rin lets out a breath.

"He never stops, does he?"

"No, he doesn't."

Their shoulders touch. Here they are again, waiting for their train. A group of flirty teenagers stands near the vending machines, talking loudly, laughing even louder, stepping on each other's toes.

"So…" Rin says, when the silence threatens to stretch too long. "Breaststroke, huh?"

"The kids wanted to," Haruka says. He shrugs, which makes him even more hyperaware of Rin's shoulder against his. When Rin takes a tiny step away, he's aware of the lack of contact more than anything.

"You're a good teacher," Rin says. "But I've already said that, haven't I?"

Haruka risks a glance, looks away immediately because Rin is already looking at him.

He shrugs again. "You haven't seen me teach that much."

"If anyone can teach swimming, Haru, it's you," Rin says, very seriously. And then he laughs. "Plus, for some weird reason kids love you. I dunno why, it's not like you've got a particularly sunny disposition or anything."

"At least my teeth aren't frightening."

"Wow," Rin says under his breath, trying to bite back his smile with his not-so-frightening teeth and failing. "How cold, Haru."

Haruka turns his face away again, because it's too late to smother his own smile.

"Have you started reading that book you got for Gou?" he asks when they board the train, the giggling teenagers squeezing past them to claim the seats facing each other.

"I got it for  _her!_ " Rin says, red-faced and looking pretty delighted at the teasing. "I'm not going to read it!"

"Hm," Haruka says, to Rin's spluttered indignation.

Flirting, Haruka thinks with a shivery feeling in his stomach, is surprisingly fun, even though he hardly know what he's doing.

The train lurches out of the station, and the two of them stumble. Haruka grabs a rail, and Rin grabs his arm, and for some reason they both end up laughing. It's all so strange and exhilarating. Haruka feels shy and brave at the same time, fueled by Rin's constant grin.

After the train ride, when they're nearing the fork in the steps to Makoto's house, Rin asks him if he wants to join them for their English lesson. Haruka says no.

"Come on," Rin says in English, nudging him in the side.

In English, Haruka says, "No, thank you."

He ends up in Makoto's living room, elbow on his knee and cheek on his fist while Makoto and Rin fumble their way through a conversation on something Haruka's forgotten about – weather? lunch? directions again?

He's staring at the dining table so that he doesn't stare at Rin, and he's mentally planning next week's swim lesson so that he doesn't listen to Rin talk. He's doing such a good job of not paying attention to Rin – eyes out of focus, thoughts having strayed from swimming completely to trying to remember if he put the rice from this morning in the fridge – that when a hand touches his knee, he jumps.

Makoto's smiling face comes into view.

"I said, want some lunch?"

Mrs. Tachibana has chilled noodles with ginger dipping sauce prepared for them, and afterwards Makoto takes three of the twins' popsicles from the freezer and they go out to the steps to enjoy them. The rain and clouds from yesterday have burned right away, and just a slight breeze coming up over the ocean serves to keep the heat at bay.

The popsicles turn their tongues purple, and even tint their teeth a very light lilac. A chunk of Makoto's popsicle falls off its stick and right onto his beige shorts, and even though he bats the ice away, a purple splotch remains.

"Put water on it," Rin says, pointing at the ocean, and Makoto says, "Why would I run all the way to the beach when there's a sink inside my own house?"

It must be the sugar that makes them all laugh. Mouth cold and teeth a little bit achy, Haruka thinks that today is the most he's laughed in a long time.

It feels remarkably like this is the same  _them_  as they had been in the winter, he and Makoto and Rin, sleeping in his living room and watching the New Year's sunrise and just being together without effort, no tension. Sitting between them on the sun-warmed steps, it feels like things have finally fallen back into place.

He doesn't even care that his popsicle hurts his teeth, or that on his right, Rin sits a bit closer than Makoto does on his left, or that his mind keeps bringing him back to kissing Rin. All day, every time Rin has smiled or laughed, he's thought about Rin's lips pressed to his and felt a rush go through him. But even thinking about Rin's kiss doesn't produce a rush right now, because it's just a slow summer day and he's with his two closest friends. It feels like things never changed.

Except change is when they're inside, and Rin and Makoto are back at work, and Haruka watches Rin's eyes blink, watches his eyelashes, watches him brush his hair out of his face, watches his lips move without listening for the words.

Change is when Rin glances at him and finds Haruka already looking, and Haruka feels like he's been caught red-handed.

Rin holds his gaze for several long moments, and then, in no great hurry, turns his attention back to Makoto with a distracted  _Hm?_

Change is the slow, turning thing in Haruka's stomach.

_I want to kiss him again._

* * *

When Haruka finishes his last lesson on Sunday, Rin is on the bleachers with Zaki, and they've been speaking animatedly about something while she's been on her break. But when Rin sees Haruka he stands up just as animatedly, so much excitement that Haruka is almost overwhelmed by it, stuck in place for a moment, dripping onto the concrete.

When Zaki says goodbye to them and goes to join her group, he's only half aware, and maybe lifts a hand absently in farewell. Rin tosses him a towel, which lands over his face.

Somehow, he ends up inviting Rin over. And somehow, on the train ride, he manages through several conversations while hardly aware of what he's saying. Rin talks and smiles and laughs and it's difficult to extend his focus farther than that. Farther than the fact that  _I like him, a lot._

The conversation fades away once they're off the train, replaced easily by the noise of the people around them – commuters at the station, friends walking down the sidewalk, snatches of music from car radios. The beach is busy, too. Parents and children, towels and parasols, an orange Shiba bounding after the tennis ball its owner throws over the sand. Rin's shoulder almost touches Haruka's, but not quite.

"Oh, shit," Rin says, as soon as they're inside Haruka's house. He opens his backpack and takes out two bento boxes. "Gou made me bring these for lunch."

"Are they still okay to eat?" Haruka asks, thinking of how long they've been in Rin's backpack, thinking of their walk in the sun. The front door is still open, and the heat spills greedily inside.

"Um…I dunno?" Rin opens one and sniffs it. "Smells fine to me. What, why are you laughing?"

"I don't know. You try it first."

"Why? You think it's bad? Haru, you have to try it too."

"I will once you do."

"If I get sick, I'm blaming you."

"You won't know that quickly."

"Then try it at the same time as me!"

The ridiculousness of the situation sets in – Rin gesticulating with a bento in each hand, Haruka standing with his arms crossed and chin turned up – and once again laughter makes itself their soundtrack. Rin's eyes catch his, and for a second Haruka thinks they must feel the exact same giddiness flooding through them.

They eat in the living room, and the fish cakes and cucumbers and fried rice all taste fine. The stubble on Rin's legs is longer. On his arms, too.

Without really thinking about it, Haruka says, "I thought you shaved."

Rin follows Haruka's gaze down to his arms. "Oh, yeah. Somehow there's like, no razors in our house and Gou would murder me if I used hers, and I'm just being too lazy to go buy some." He sticks his chopsticks into the corner of Haruka's bento, and gives Haruka a hopeful grin.

Haruka lets Rin take it; he'd grilled mackerel to add to their meal anyway.

"I thought you thought having hair made you slower."

Rin shrugs, chomping down on Haruka's last fish cake. "It's mostly psychological." He grins. "Or is it?"

"Probably," Haruka says. "I used to beat you without shaving my body hair."

Rin coughs, cheeks going pink, and after he manages to swallow his fish cake he says, "When did you get so ruthless?" His words are tinged with admiration.

Yes, Haruka decides with finality. Flirting is very fun.

Rin isn't deterred at all by the prospect of doing housework, so he does the dishes while Haruka goes upstairs to strip the sheets from the bed and gather all the towels for a wash. Rin absolutely insists on doing the dry mopping, so while the laundry spins around in the machine, Haruka sits on the low table in the living room with his lesson plan in his lap and Rin practically runs the mop around him. When Rin asks if Haruka wants him to do upstairs, Haruka says, "If you want, I guess," and he hears Rin's feet pound up the steps.

Rin puts the dry dishes away in the cabinets, runs Haruka's recyclables down to the collection center at the base of the hill, even feeds the cats, which seem to have shown up especially for him – and when Haruka tells him this, Rin grins up at him from the patio, his lap full of cat.

Up in Haruka's room after the laundry has gone through the dryer, Rin says, "So I never asked the other day, but what  _is_  this?" He holds up the shirt that just fell out of the sheets, and must have gone through the wash with them. Bright orange, emblazoned with a grayish-blue shimmery dolphin.

"I bought it for myself," Haruka says, holding his hand out. "I was wondering where it went."

"Haru, this is as horrifying as your other weirdo fish shirt."

"Loosejaw-kun. Don't call him a weirdo."

Rin starts to smile. "Seriously, why do I even like you?"

Words catch in Haruka's throat, because he has no quick response for that. Awkwardness rushes in, like a wave that has crashed unexpectedly fast and strong.

"Sorry," Rin says. "Sorry, shit, just forget I said that."

"There was a shark version," Haruka says. He's trying, and feels so stilted in trying, to remedy things. It always falls on Rin – to lighten the mood, to turn things around, to have to know what to say – but maybe he can help this time. "It made me think of you."

This is probably the wrong thing to say, but to his relief, Rin gives a good-natured roll of his eyes and tosses the shirt at him. Haruka shakes it out, then folds it and crosses to his closet to put it away.

"If I say something in English, will you understand me?" Rin says.

"Probably not," Haruka says, head in the closet. "Why? What are you going to say?"

"Well…it's something about you."

Haruka's stomach turns over. He sticks his shirt on the shelf with the other t-shirts, then pretends to rustle around the few coats he has hanging up. "Why would you say something about me to me in English?"

"Because I'd probably shrivel up if you understood."

Just knowing this makes Haruka want to shrivel up, but Rin has his attention completely. "What is it?"

Rin says something in English. Haruka catches the words 'funny' and 'like', and hopes his ears aren't bright red.

"Did you say I'm funny?"

"You  _did_  understand me!"

"Not really," Haruka says. He tells himself to be calm, and pulls his head out of the closet.

Rin has his arms crossed, but doesn't look nervous at all. Haruka doesn't understand how he does it – going from visibly flustered at one thing to supremely calm at another, seemingly no rhyme or reason to either.

Right now, Rin looks like he finds something very amusing. His fingers drum against his arms and his smile seems to be holding back a laugh. And Haruka thinks,  _I like him. I really like him._

"I said you're really funny and I'm glad we can spend time together like this again."

Haruka hears it but he doesn't hear it. He's going to say something stupid, he can tell. The words are in his mouth but not his head, and then they're nowhere but the open air between them, and he hears them too late.

"You can kiss me."

Rin's eyes go wide. Haruka wants to jump into his closet and close the door and never come out again.

"Really?" Rin says, with an aborted step toward Haruka. "Really? Can I?"

Haruka doesn't think he can take it back now, not when Rin looks so hopeful and his own heart is trying to beat right out of his throat. So he nods. Rin beams at him so brightly that he almost does pitch himself into his closet.

"Okay," Rin says, stepping up to him. He gives an awkward laugh, eyes flitting to Haruka's mouth. "Um, I'm just gonna…" He looks back at Haruka's eyes for a moment, giving Haruka time to turn him down.

Haruka just holds his breath and thinks that Rin is very close, and he suddenly can't remember their last kiss at all, and this is the Rin that he's known since elementary school and he's the same but so different and Haruka thinks he has really nice hair and eyes and a nice smile, nice eyelashes when he blinks, and sometimes he smells really nice but now it's just kind of nothing tinged with chlorine –

And Rin's lips touch his, and those are nice too. The racing feeling inside Haruka's chest hangs suspended. His eyes are closed and he's still holding his breath, and when Rin pulls back Haruka wishes he hadn't so soon.

They stare at each other for several moments, or maybe no moments. Haruka has only just remembered to breathe so he can't be sure he remembers how many seconds have passed since Rin's lips left his. What he does know is that neither of them are going anywhere, and Rin watches him like he's trying to gauge his reaction.

"You can kiss me again," Haruka says, and Rin does just that.

It's still very careful, but the slight part of Rin's mouth, the slightest brush of their lips when Rin draws back just enough to tilt his head the other way and press close again, makes Haruka feel like he's going to flutter apart. He has no idea how many seconds they stand there kissing.

"Um, tomorrow," Rin says suddenly, pulling back. His hands bump into Haruka's, fingers falling just shy of lacing with his. "I won't see you at the pool. I'm spending the day at Samezuka."

"Okay," Haruka says.

Rin grins. "I'm going to kiss you again."

"Okay."

And again, they kiss.

* * *

Hiro and Ishikawa-san aren't at the pool the following morning. Haruka doesn't know why, and probably would be more curious if he weren't still replaying the events from yesterday's… he tries to find a word for it... kissing session? How embarrassing. A kissing session with Rin. A very long kissing session with Rin. A shiver sits at the base of his spine.

No, no, he's here to practice. He's here to be  _serious_. He shakes his head clear and jumps into the pool.

Using the clock on the wall to time himself really isn't accurate enough, though he finds that it does cause him to speed up toward the end to try to make up for the second or two he'll lose in turning to check his time.

He knows Rin would be fine with practicing with him – would be delighted, probably. One time had been nostalgic, but Haruka doesn't want to end up being a thorn in Rin's side. He just isn't up to Rin's level anymore, and he doesn't think Rin should practice with someone who will slow him down.

He eyes the clock, waiting for the seconds hand to reach the top. When it does, he launches himself back down the lane. He's alone in the pool; the water is all his. He races his way through it with the same ease as always, but ease and speed aren't the same thing and his internal timer tells him how much slower he's become. He reaches the opposite wall, makes the turn, and speeds back to the start.

He slaps the wall and throws his head out of the water to check the clock, just as someone says, "Hi."

He turns his head so fast he pulls a muscle, one hand grabbing the gutter while the other goes to the burning spot in his neck.

"Oh, shit, sorry!" Zaki says, scrambling to her knees at the edge of the pool. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Haruka says through his wince. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"I came in right when you started your first lap," Zaki says. She's dressed to swim, and dangles a stopwatch from her fingers. With an apologetic smile she says, "This might help?"

"Reiji's sick," she explains glumly when Haruka sits beside her, working the kink out of his neck. "I decided I'd come earlier and see if I could catch you. Scaring you wasn't part of the plan, I promise."

Neck pain or not, Haruka figures she's his problem solved for the day, so he welcomes her company.

She's surprisingly tough on him – surprising because they haven't practiced together like this before, though he supposes he shouldn't be surprised at all, knowing her personality. It's frustrating, going from next to no feedback to someone yelling at him to do his turns quicker, to time his dives closer, to keep his pace steadier.

But when he thinks he can't go on any more, when he clings to the gutter and gasps for breath and eventually looks up for his time, she grins and says, "Better already," and it's exactly what he wanted to hear.

When he times her butterfly, he's struck by how different it is from Rin's. It's ferocious, yes, and neither hers nor his make them look like actual butterflies, but while Rin strikes a tenuous balance between flying over the water and forcing it apart, Zaki seems to barely come out of it, hardly separate from it even when she breaches it. Haruka appreciates the grace he sees in her, and wonders how her form can look so easy while looking so powerful at the same time.

Afterwards, they sit with their towels over their shoulders, their feet in the water, and Haruka asks her what he's been wondering for a long time – if she's on a team.

She gives a short laugh. "No. I was, but things happened and it kinda…" She makes a vague gesture with her hand. "Burned down."

"Burned down?" Haruka repeats in disbelief.

"Well, yeah. The building. Then we moved to a temporary building but other stuff happened to me and I ended up not going back. I know, super dramatic. It's true though. I kinda ended up taking time off, and now I'm trying to get back on track but…" Another vague wave, two hands this time, and her voice goes very small. "There's always so much ground to cover when you're getting back to something you thought you gave up."

Cautiously, Haruka asks, "Do you want to go back to the same team?"

"Oh yeah, it disbanded. Money problems. It was small to begin with but the fire really set us back a lot, so the coaches ended up getting everyone places on other teams. But I was out of the picture by then. I know where I want to try out, though," she says, glancing at him. "I've still got a couple months 'til then, so I'm working hard."

"You're bound to make it. You've been training a lot."

She gives him a grateful smile. "I hope so." Then she sighs. "But there's my parents to deal with, too."

"Your parents don't want you to swim?"

"It's not really that simple, but…yeah, basically."

She kicks her feet, sends out little splashes. Haruka feels like she wants to say more, so he waits. When she does continue, the words come in a great rush, like she's been waiting and waiting for the chance to say them all at once.

"My parents want me to be the ideal daughter. Go to college, study something smart and applicable, get a degree and do nothing much with it, get married and start a family, give them grandkids and be a good wife. But, like, I have  _no_  interest in that. I don't want kids. Kids are fine, I like teaching them, but I don't want any of my own. I don't want to just be a wife. I don't want to  _be_  for the sake of other people. Like, I have my own goals and stuff. It's my life? They have their own? I wanna think about myself first, and I wish it could be that easy." She presses her lips together, looks away. "Sorry. You don't care."

"I do."

She looks back at him, expression tense, like she isn't sure she can trust him. But she must see his honesty, because she lets out a breath and says a little bit stiffly, "Okay, thanks."

"Your parents…do they know how much you like swimming?"

Zaki shrugs. "They think it gets in the way. Takes up too much of my time and attention when I should be on the lookout for a nice boy who will take care of me, shit like that. They kicked me out of the house when I dropped out of school, though, so I don't know why they think they still have the right to care. Yeah," she says in reaction to Haruka's surprise, her grin bordering on a grimace.

_And now?_  Haruka thinks. Zaki clearly expects the question, because she provides the answer without hesitation.

"I'm living with Reiji and his family right now, and they're really great, and I've known Reiji since I was maybe five and he was seven so it's not weird or anything. Of course my parents disapprove, but the real gross thing is they've actually told me Reiji would be a good marriage candidate, and they'd be fine with it then." She lets out a very long sigh, and then she's left with a startlingly blank look on her face. "Families are hard."

Families  _are_  hard, Haruka thinks, looking down at his knees. Except not really in his case. He's always had freedom, so much of it, and after his grandmother's passing, sometimes it felt like too much. Or, not freedom so much as a lacking. What is a family that's never around, and pretends a few letters a year and a visit once a blue moon is enough, especially to become invested in a future that isn't even theirs?

"So," Zaki says, "why do you swim?"

"What?"

"Why do you swim? What's your story? I know you've got one. All you silent types do. Trust me, I deal with one enough to know." The hints of her typical grin are back – unrelenting and demanding.

"I swim…" Haruka's mind feels empty, even though the answer should be so easy. He's come up with it before, several times, but with each new person that asks he feels like he has to start all over. "I swim because I've always felt free swimming. I like being in the water. It feels easy."

"Because you're so good."

"I'm good because I don't fight it. The water. I just swim."

Zaki gives a little laugh. "Okay. But if you're so good, why aren't  _you_  swimming for a club? You like it enough, or don't you?"

"I didn't like scouting."

Zaki raises her eyebrows. "That's it?"

Like always, Haruka's hit with the desire to close off, and sink inward, and not have to talk anymore. It's always that reaction –  _That's it?,_ as though his reason for distancing himself from swimming isn't legitimate enough, as though he was somehow wrong to feel the way he did.

But he reminds himself that Zaki didn't have to tell him any of what she did, and that she only did because he said that he cared, and now she's doing the same for him.

"I didn't like feeling like…like those people telling me to give a good race made it so that I was swimming for them. I didn't know them, but they thought I was swimming for them, and all they cared about was how fast I was, and they acted so encouraging but they didn't know me at all. They wanted me to swim fast, because they wanted to scout someone fast for their teams. I didn't want to give my swimming away to anyone like that."

Looking intrigued, Zaki says, "What do you mean, 'giving it away'? What does that mean?"

"Winning, for me… I liked winning, but only when the people I swam with mattered. I just didn't care about swimming for people I didn't care about."

"Hm."

Haruka frowns. "What?"

"I dunno, you're talking about this all in the past, like this is how it  _was_  for you, but at the same time it doesn't seem like you've stopped thinking about it or like you've let it go. You're still hanging onto swimming, and I get that, 'cause it's been important in my life too, but if you're trying to say you've moved on and that's that, I totally don't buy it. I mean, I just saw you in the pool."

When he doesn't respond – and he doesn't know how to, has no defense, no rebuttal, he doesn't  _know_  – she carries on.

"Or maybe that's just me. Everything you say you don't want, is everything I want. Getting scouted, being on a team, getting better, winning." Her smile is wistful and self-depreciating. "I just want to go pro, and be known. Shallow, huh?"

Haruka thinks of Rin, and says, "I don't think so."

"You're full of encouragement, aren't you? I can see why you're a good coach for the kids." It's kind of teasing, kind of serious. She gives another loud sigh. Haruka can see her mulling over what she wants to say, can see that this is going to be what's troubling her most.

"The hardest part…" she says slowly, but then she stops again, scrunches up her nose and bunches her eyebrows. "The shittiest part…is that a part of me thinks it's too late for me, but then I tell myself 'how many people haven't even tried because they told themselves the same thing?'. You know? Like, how many people might have been able to do what they dreamed of, but were afraid to try because they thought they'd be starting too late? Because we're always told we have to do things by deadlines and schedules and if we don't hit the points along the way perfectly we've screwed ourselves over." She pulls her feet onto the edge of the pool, wraps her arms around her knees. "I just don't know what to do."

The door to the women's locker room opens, and several women come out, arms full of pool noodles. Zaki stands and heads for the bleachers, and Haruka scrambles after her.

"You should try," he says. "You're good. You should try. Do it for yourself."

She grins, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around her waist. "Yeah, I should." Then, with a last glance at the pool, she adds, "But then I have to start figuring things out, and that's scary."

Haruka doesn't say so, but he agrees.

While he waits for his train, the sky cloudy and the air heavy, the weather so undecided these days, what floats around in his head like an echo is:  _What do you mean, 'giving it away'?_

He'd answered, but at the same time, he doesn't know the answer at all. Swimming, something that is so centrally  _him_ … _his swimming_ …how can he give away something that he doesn't possess, that he just does? And conversely, if swimming means that anyone can see it, how can he keep it to himself?

Giving it away – what does it mean?

* * *

It's Tuesday night, very late. Rin had been at Makoto's earlier in the afternoon, but now he's at Haruka's.

The two of them ate dinner, and before that Rin had snooped through Haruka's lesson plans (Haruka had let him) and asked questions about all of Haruka's students, and Haruka had almost touched Rin's hair too many times, because aside from going to Samezuka yesterday, Rin also got his hair cut. It's closer to the length it was in high school, the ends just reaching his nape. The hair tie adorns his wrist now.

The plan had been to bid Rin off after dinner, but instead they'd ended up kissing in front of the door and Rin had said, "Can I stay longer?" and Haruka had used it as an excuse to tell Rin to wash the dishes for him.

But in the kitchen they'd just ended up kissing again, dishes, sink, everything forgotten. And this is where they are now.

Haruka thinks he's become much too used to this in such a short amount of time. But he loves the way Rin's hands come up to hold his elbows, while his own fingers just barely curl into the front of Rin's shirt, while they press blushing feelings to each other's mouths instead of trying to say them.

Now, one of Rin's hands comes up to touch his face, and Rin makes a sound in his throat like he's just realized something. He breaks the kiss to say, "Oh yeah, Haru, seven days 'til your birthday."

Haruka thinks this is getting a little out of control. Especially because Rin's thumb is almost touching his bottom lip. And maybe it's not Rin's whole hand on his face – maybe it's just his fingers. Rin's fingers, very light against his cheek and below his lip, and Rin's face very close and Rin's eyes so full of light, and Haruka has to think very hard to remember what Rin had just stopped kissing him to say.

His birthday, in a week.

"Are you planning me a surprise?" he says, feeling like the words come out of him very slowly, his mind too placated with pleasure to think with any urgency.

His lips tingle, but then again so does all of him. His chest most of all. If only he'd decided he wanted to kiss Rin sooner, so much sooner, they could have avoided so much awkwardness and hurt and avoidance and just felt nice. Kissing Rin feels so nice.

Who would have thought that touching lips together could be so pleasant? Why hadn't anyone told him?

"Hmm…maybe?" Rin says. His hand moves down to rest very lightly against the side of Haruka's neck, and he leans back in.

Haruka's not sure who hums when their lips touch, but he's sure that Rin's palm presses firmer, warmer, against his neck. And that Rin opens his mouth a little bit more than usual, and then closes it around Haruka's lower lip. Haruka feels a current go straight through him, jumpstarting his heart back into that rapid thrumming mess that makes it harder to breathe.

Rin puts his other hand on Haruka's waist, pulls Haruka so close that there's almost no space between them, and this is when the thrumming turns into something too close to panic and Haruka's fingers curl tight against Rin's stomach and push.

"Sorry," he says, turning his face away, jerking out of Rin's hold. He already knows, without looking, that he's done something very cruel. When he does look and sees the surprise and the hurt mingling on Rin's face he feels a cold, hard feeling congeal inside of him. Rin's hand that had been on his neck is still raised partway, and he looks like Haruka might as well have yelled at him.

Haruka's face starts to burn, and this embarrassment isn't the pleasant kind. He doesn't understand what he just did, doesn't understand why he did it except for the fact that things were too fast and he was afraid.

"Sorry," he says again.

Rin manages a smile. It looks sad and confused, and he leans in and kisses the corner of Haruka's mouth.

"You don't really have to do those," Haruka says, as Rin turns to the sink and pulls on the dish gloves.

"It's fine," Rin says. "I mean, you did feed me."

Haruka stares helplessly at Rin's back. That last kiss had felt like an  _It's okay_ , but also like he'd already lost his chance to explain himself.

The only thing he can think of to do is to get out a clean dish towel and stand beside Rin. Luckily, Rin understands, and hands him each clean dish to dry and put away.

Rin's arms are shaven, the skin completely smooth, another change Haruka noticed earlier. He can't help that he wants to feel them, but thinks it's shamefully hypocritical of him. The water runs, the dishes clink together, Rin is silent, and Haruka's afraid that he hasn't been able to remedy things at all this time.

But when Rin yawns, nose wrinkling and teeth all showing, and then turns his ear toward the window, attention caught on something, he no longer looks upset.

"Hey, it's raining again."

All Haruka can see out the window is the dark of night, but he hears the pattering now that Rin has shut off the tap.

"I guess I'm really getting my summer rain," Rin says musingly.

"Do you want to stay?" Haruka says, and then, backtracking quickly, "I mean, the trains aren't coming as often, and you'll have to wait in the rain. I don't mind if you stay here, if you'd rather stay dry."

Rin gives him a long look. "Are you sure?" he asks. And this is a serious question, nothing playful, nothing flirty. Just his uncertainty.

Haruka nods as resolutely as he knows how. He knows the old him would just let Rin go, let the fissure he'd created between them linger untouched, but the new him that he can't quite place but that he feels more and more often can't let that happen.

"Okay," Rin says. "Thanks."

"You can take a bath first. You can sleep in Loosejaw-kun, too."

Rin pulls a face. "Do I have to?"

"Oh, right, you want to sleep in the dolphin one. You can come up with a name for him, if you want. Or her."

Rin shakes his head, eyes rolling. "Just give me the damn sparkly shirt."

Haruka sets the futons out in the living room, since it's cooler downstairs. The rain is a light, muggy one, so he leaves the kitchen window open for the air and the sound. He listens to it while he lies atop his futon – the white noise that's both quiet and loud, or loudly quiet. And then he listens to Rin's footsteps approaching, and turns his head toward the entranceway in anticipation.

Rin returns with a towel over his shoulders and Haruka's orange shirt clashing with his hair. He leans against the entranceway and says, "Flip."

Haruka sits up. "What?" he asks, because Rin had just spoken in English.

Rin points at the dolphin. "Flip. The name."

"Flip…"

"San. Flip-san."

Haruka starts smiling, and Rin does too.

"Yeah, I was seriously thinking about it this whole time," Rin says, coming into the room. "Don't be mad if I'm asleep by the time you get back. I'm exhausted."

By the time Haruka gets back, only the lamp in the corner is on, and Rin is sprawled atop his futon, the covers beneath him. Haruka tries to cross the room as quietly as possible, the dolphin on Rin's shirt sparkling in his peripherals, but when he turns off the lamp Rin says, "Are we running in the morning?"

"I always do," Haruka says into the darkness. He toes his way to his futon, pulls back the blankets. They rustle loudly in the quiet, and only after he's laid his damp head onto his pillow does Rin answer.

"Okay then. Night, Haru."

"Good night."

But he can't sleep. He shuts his eyes and waits for the hush of the rain to pull him into a dream, or better yet, dreamlessness, but instead it sounds like whispers and he can't relax into it. After what feels like an eternity of lying as still as possible, using every ounce of self-discipline to keep from tossing and turning, he turns onto his side and cracks open the eye not pressed into his pillow.

He can hardly see Rin, might just be able to make out a vague shape a different shade of darkness beside him. Close enough to touch if he reached out. He feels safe with Rin like this, which counts for something big, he knows.

He isn't afraid of Rin, but he is afraid. Of how this changing relationship with Rin will make him change…or of how Rin might change from liking him…or of expectations he won't know how to fulfill, of not being good enough, of not knowing how to keep Rin happy because he's  _always_  ended up hurting Rin,  _always._

Things were so much easier when he was in high school. He could pretend there was still time to waste and that he didn't have to deal with growing up, didn't have to deal with friends going off places. Didn't have to deal with having feelings like these for a friend he hardly gets to see, a friend he's wrong-footed so many times, and who has wrong-footed him just as much.

A friend who is facing the world and one day might not have a reason to come back to him, stuck in his uncertainty, idling in place.

Very, very quietly, he says, "Rin?"

"Hm?"

And now he feels guilty about keeping Rin awake, but he wants so badly to say something, to open the bottle and release some of what he's been keeping stoppered. Maybe it's the darkness making him brave, the fact that he doesn't know if Rin is looking at him, and that he knows Rin probably couldn't see him even if he were.

"Haru?" Rin's voice is low and rough with fatigue, but he sounds worried.

"Do you think it's too late for me?"

"What?"

"To swim."

After a pause, Rin shifts, and Haruka's sure that Rin's looking at him now.

"You mean compete?"

"I don't know." And, predictably, Haruka wants to retreat, end the conversation immediately, but he won't let his cold feet cut Rin off this time. "Not right now. But what if sometime? Would it be too late for me?"

Rin shifts again. Haruka's eyes have started to grow accustomed to the lack of light, and he thinks Rin has propped himself on an elbow.

"Well…there's what most people would tell you, and then there's what I'd tell you, and then there's what you'd tell yourself."

Haruka knows what most people would tell him, but he doesn't want to hear that – he's tired of people who don't matter telling him what he can and can't, should and shouldn't do. And he has no idea what he would tell himself, which leaves one option.

"What would you tell me?"

"I'd tell you…you're damn good, Haru. And yeah, you might be giving yourself a harder time starting back up later, and the more you wait the harder it'll be, but it also depends on how competitive you'd want to be. Nobody has your talent. No matter what you decide to do with swimming, you'll be damn good at it. If you want to get  _really_  competitive…you'd have to figure that out soon and if you  _do_ , I don't think it'd be too late for you. For some people, yeah, but not for you. You're so damn stubborn that if you  _really_  wanted it, you'd work your ass off and get it."

Haruka bites his lip. Out of all the emotions that could have made him feel, why does frustration have to be the strongest? He wants Rin's reassurance and he doesn't.

"Zaki said something yesterday. 'How many people haven't tried something because they told themselves it was too late for them?' It just made me think. That's why I asked."

"You and Chiburi are kind of in the same boat," Rin says with a chuckle. "And I don't think it's too late for her. But who knows, maybe I'm an idealist. Oh, but hey, listen to this. Statistics have shown that the average age of Olympians has been going steadily up over the years. And like –" He yawns, tries to speak through it. "Like, Michael Phelps is probably gonna be in his five-hundredth Olympics so there isn't really an age limit for these things. Yeah, okay, he's been doing them since he was really young,  _but,_  he's still going strong so really if you start a little late, it's not like you can't catch up. You just gotta try, and –" Another yawn, and now his voice comes muffled from his pillow. "And you try, Haru. You're always trying."

For a while, all Haruka hears is the rain. He thinks Rin might have fallen asleep, but there's a sudden rustle and Rin says, "M'not saying you've gotta go to the Olympics, by the way. It's just an example. Just data. I'm just saying."

Haruka hides his smile in his pillow, even though Rin couldn't see it anyway. "I know. Rin, thank you."

"Was that helpful?" Rin sounds surprised. "Okay, awesome. My brain's hardly working. I have no idea what I just said."

"Go to sleep. Good night."

But this time, after a minute or two of silence, it's Rin who speaks up.

"You know, Haru… I stopped swimming too. Only I  _really_ stopped. But here I am now. So if you do ever feel like you want it, it's possible. And if you don't, that's okay. Either way, I've got your back, okay?"

Haruka reaches for the vague lump that he hopes is Rin's shoulder, and that indeed is.

"Hm?" Rin says, but Haruka just skims his hand down Rin's arm, down the smooth skin, until he finds Rin's hand, and with the last bit of bravery the darkness gives him he curls his fingers around Rin's.

"Thank you," he says again.

Rin pulls their linked hands close to his chest and says, "Goodnight, Haru."

Haruka's hand starts to sweat, but Rin doesn't say anything, or maybe he's asleep. Haruka's chest feels too tight, an addictive discomfort. He wonders how he'll ever fall asleep, but soon enough he does.

* * *

He hears his alarm from far, far away. He should wake up, maybe, and shut it off, but it sounds so distant that he could probably ignore it and drift right back off.

But then he hears a displeased grunt beside him, and the sleep is whisked right away. He reaches blindly for his phone, but ends up hitting something warm and solid that says, _"Ow."_

Futons, the living room. Rin spent the night. His phone is on his other side, so he rolls over and reaches again, eyes still shut. He finds it, punches his thumb into some random buttons until the alarm goes silent.

Then he turns back over, and the first thing he sees this morning is Rin on his stomach with his head in his arms, one eye squinted open. His hair goes every which way, the shirt has twisted all around his torso, and Haruka has never wanted to kiss him more.

"Hi," he says.

"Getting punched in the face isn't exactly what I was envisioning this wakeup call to be like."

"I thought you were my phone."

"For some reason I'm having a hard time imagining you punching your phone every morning."

"I didn't punch you."

Rin laughs, breathy and sleepy, and Haruka's heart beats faster, harder.

"Let's run?" he says.

Rin's eyes are bright, happy, adoring. "Yeah."

 


	16. Collision (Summer - part 6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the time I'm done editing each chapter I've read it over so many times that the magic has left for me, and I'm always so worried you won't find it interesting and yet, even with the months that pass between each chapter, you still find the story interesting. I'm so amazed each time. As always, thanks for your patience, and thanks for your comments!

Hiro and Ishikawa-san are back the next morning, though Ishikawa-san is sitting on the bleachers when Haruka comes in, watching with a faint smile as Hiro swims back and forth across the width of the pool. Haruka notices that she looks tired, and though she's in her swim suit, her towel is wrapped around her and it doesn't look like she's gone into the water at all.

"Good morning, Nanase-kun," she says when he sets his towel down on the bleachers. She's definitely worn around the eyes, and her voice lacks energy.

"Good morning," Haruka says. He wonders if it isn't his place to, but asks all the same: "Is everything all right?"

His question seems to cheer her, which he doesn't quite understand.

"Things are all quite all right. How are you, Nanase-kun?"

Her question is quite cheerful, too, but contains an insistence Haruka recognizes well from the times he's been asked similar things by Mrs. Tachibana – her insistence is that of a mother hoping for a genuine answer.

"I'm fine."

There is a loud splash from the pool, and Hiro calls, "Haru-chan!" He waves frantically from the shallow end.

Ishikawa-san chuckles. "Thank goodness he's young and full of energy, and enjoys getting up early. Who knows how things will be down the line." Haruka looks back at her, and she gives him a smile full of wisdom. "Though, of course, it never does anyone well to try to predict the future."

He looks away, self-conscious, wondering how much she has been paying attention.

"Hiro's been looking forward to swimming with you," she says, letting him off the hook. "He missed you yesterday."

Gratefully, Haruka heads to the pool, where Hiro insists that the most important thing is watching him do a variety of underwater handstands. When he comes up from the fourth one, Hiro's face is taken up by a grin so delighted that Haruka doesn't mind for a moment the water clogging his left ear canal. But then Hiro says, "Coach Zaki!" eyes not on Haruka at all.

Haruka turns. Zaki has just come out of the women's locker room, and Hiro rushes up the steps to greet her, sending water everywhere. With a laugh, Zaki opens her arms so he can go bounding into her.

She lets out an exaggerated _oomph!_ at the impact. "Hey, Squirt," she says, ruffling his hair.

"What are you doing here?" he says, neck craned back so he can look up at her.

"I'm here to practice. Even though I'm real good, I gotta practice too."

Hiro looks from her to Haruka, who stands in the shallow end with is head tilted, hoping for his ear to drain.

"Are you two going to practice together?" Hiro asks him.

Zaki looks imploringly at Haruka, and Haruka wonders when he became such a pushover, though he doesn't mind that much.

"Yeah, we are," Haruka says. Zaki flashes him a thankful smile.

"What about Min-chan?" Hiro says. "Mom and I saw him earlier when we were coming in."

Haruka feels a little shiver of anticipation. The only other place Rin would be must be the weight room. "He probably swam before you got here."

Ishikawa-san calls from the bleachers, her tote bag over her shoulder.

"Okay, I gotta go see Grandma," Hiro says. He releases Zaki and says to the both of them, "See you tomorrow, maybe!"

"Min-chan," Zaki says with a snort once Hiro and Ishikawa-san have left.

Haruka works back a smile of his own. "Yeah, there's no real point correcting him."

There is an awkward moment when Zaki shifts her weight, and the water laps gently around Haruka's hips. During work yesterday neither of them mentioned the conversation they'd had at this very pool edge, but things hadn't been awkward then because there had been papers to file, phones to answer, rooms to clean.

Now Haruka can tell that they're both thinking the same thing – how close does it make them, to have learned such private things about each other?

"Is Amano still sick?" he asks. It seems like the right thing, because Zaki makes a face and approaches the edge of the pool.

"Yeah, he sounds like death. I won't even step into the same room as him. Dunno how he's gonna be fit for his lessons on Friday." She takes the stopwatch from around her neck. "Oh well, sucks for him. Here, since you swam first the other day, you can time me first today."

They trade places, Haruka taking the stopwatch from her as they do. And so, they practice.

* * *

Haruka exits the locker room a while later, hand still tingling from the high-five Zaki slapped into it when he left her to do some laps on her own. He hopes she hasn't started a new parting ritual for them; a few more slaps like that and she'll knock his hand right off.

The question of where to find Rin is answered as soon as he passes by the front desk. He spots him sitting on the front steps, scooted up against the railing so that people have plenty of room to go up and down.

Rin doesn't turn to check who it is when Haruka opens the door. He's immersed in a game on his phone, so instead of announcing his presence, Haruka sits right beside him.

Rin jumps. "Shit, Haru, you scared me! I thought you were just some random person sitting next to me."

"Why would a random person sit beside you?"

"I dunno, I look really nice or something?"

Blatantly ignoring the invitation for a compliment, Haruka says, "Have you been waiting long?"

"Nah," Rin says, tucking his phone away and getting to his feet. "I kind of figured out your schedule so I knew when you'd be finished." He stuffs his hands into his pockets. "I was gonna go home for lunch. Wanna come?"

"Sure," Haruka says, standing as well.

Rin smiles, looking relieved. "I can't promise we have mackerel. Actually, I can promise we don't."

"Okay."

He woke up beside Rin this morning and went running with him, and then shared breakfast and said goodbye to him (Rin took the train straight to the rec center after breakfast; Haruka followed behind a while later), and now he's passing through the parking lot with Rin beside him again. And in that short time were apart, they'd still been in the same building.

It's a comforting thought, that they can spend so much time together and also that they can be in such close quarters while going about their own routines. It's the kind of ease he hopes for as their relationship moves forward, but then he's thinking of their relationship moving forward and this is both thrilling and daunting, and his ears start to feel hot.

Rin is wearing the running shorts Haruka let him borrow this morning, and one of Haruka's plain gray T-shirts as well. He's personalized the shirt by rolling the sleeves up over his biceps.

_Showoff,_ Haruka thinks, though he stares more than he'd admit.

Rin yawns a lot on the train, and each time he does, Haruka catches it. A few times, the woman laden with shopping bags a few seats down catches it too.

The fifth time, Haruka says, eyes watery, "Didn't you sleep?" and Rin wipes his own eyes and says, "I did. Did you know that just thinking of the word 'yawn' makes you want to yawn, though? That's why I keep yawning, I can't stop thinking of the word."

"Why were you thinking of it in the first place?"

"I don't know, it was just in my head."

"Stop thinking of it."

"Then make me think of something else!"

Haruka has been trying very hard to not think about Rin's sleeve that has unrolled during the train ride. He could just reach over and fix it, and who knows how Rin would respond to that – though probably with a blush.

Instead, he stares at the blurred landscape through the window across the way and says, "Think of the surprise you're coming up with for my birthday."

"Damn," Rin says. "Now I _have_ to do something for you."

Haruka tries very hard not to smile, and by the quiet laugh Rin lets out, he can tell it's a losing battle for the both of them.

* * *

"You can put your stuff in my room," Rin says when they reach his house. Nobody is home, Gou off at school for the week and Mrs. Matsuoka at work. The floorboards in the entranceway creak a greeting though, and the homey smell of spices is more than welcoming enough. They pad up the stairs to Rin's room.

"Sorry, it's kind of a mess," Rin says absently, flicking on the light. There is maybe one book turned at a haphazard angle on his desk, and a pair of weights in the middle of the floor. He slings his swim bag onto his bed while Haruka dumps his by the door.

"So, what are you hungry for?" Rin says, rolling his weights beneath his bed with his feet.

"I don't know," Haruka says.

"Wow, you sure make yourself an easy customer, don't you?"

Haruka shrugs. "I don't mind what we eat."

"Hm," Rin says, coming back with a grin. When he's in front of Haruka he says, "Oh, also," and then ducks in and pecks Haruka on the lips. It's very quick; Haruka only has time to blink.

"Been waiting to do that," Rin says. He stands close for a second, gouging Haruka's reaction.

Haruka can't help the tensing of his shoulders. Rin has very, very pretty eyes, and even though they hold his so resolutely, Haruka can't read them from this close.

But Rin just smiles again, and then goes right around him into the hallway, calling as he goes, "I dunno what we have in the fridge, but there's bound to be something we can make."

In the kitchen, Haruka watches as Rin plucks up a watering pail to water the small cluster of succulents on the window ledge above the sink.

"Gou keeps bringing them back from school," Rin says, sticking his finger into the soil around one of them before deciding not to water that one. "Like, I'm kinda worried she's stealing them from the greenhouse club or something. And then she's counting on me to take care of them, like I really wanna do that. We already have enough plants!"

The succulents are in shades of green and blue, and a single one of them has a small, bright pink bloom soaking up the light that streams through the window. Haruka doubts that Gou actually stolen them, though the image of her sneaking into a greenhouse and stuffing them into her schoolbag is a funny one.

Rin sets down the pail and heads to the fridge. He lets out a dramatic sigh when he sees what's inside. "You're kidding me. We have fish leftovers." He takes out a Tupperware, and Haruka sees the note Mrs. Matsuoka stuck to it – _Finish this for lunch._

"Let's have it," Haruka says triumphantly.

"With what? There isn't much, and we're running low on sides."

Haruka nudges him out of the way and takes stock of what's available. He sees tofu, a carrot, a package of bean sprouts.

"Remember my mackerel stir fry, the day we had the picnic in the spring?"

"Not really. That wasn't the best day for me to pay attention to what I was eating."

Haruka risks a glance, but Rin doesn't seem particularly bothered by the memory. He has his arms folded across the top of the door, and looks curiously into the fridge.

"Bring these to the stove," Haruka says, passing him the tofu, carrot, and bean sprouts.

Rin does, letting his fingers brush generously with Haruka's when he takes them from him. Haruka follows with the fish.

"This isn't mackerel, but I can make a stir fry with it."

"You're literally the weirdest, you know?" Rin says, leaning his hip against the counter. "Fish stir fry? I'll let you do it, but still. Who does that?"

"People do."

Rin raises his eyebrows. "Mm-hm? Which people?"

"I do," Haruka says. Rin's smile makes him want to smile, which is exactly what Rin is trying for, so he pulls on the blankest expression he can muster. A wonder that he used to be so talented at them, when they take so much effort now.

"Pay attention," he says, motioning for Rin to get him a pan. "You'll be glad you learned this."

Rin pays very close attention, and Haruka is glad for the heat of the stove because he can use it as an excuse for the redness in his face.

* * *

Rin takes him to the beach after lunch. It's only a short walk away, and, according to Rin, "is usually pretty quiet there." It's quiet, but this might be because the clouds have rolled steadily back in, not thick but a thorough blanket of them, dimming the light and the sea.

They walk along the sand, not saying anything. Haruka doesn't feel like they need to. Stomach full from lunch, he's too lazy to even speak. He's watching the water, eyes unfocused so that it's just a pretty shimmering blue-grayness. They left their shoes a ways back, by the stairs up to the road. The sand is soft and still very warm beneath his feet.

"Can't believe it's already almost been two weeks," Rin says eventually.

Haruka turns his head, his eyes sliding back into focus somewhere on the way. Rin's hands are in his pockets, and his sleeve is rolled back up. A small part of Haruka laments the missed opportunity. The thought of his fingers brushing against Rin's arm makes the butterflies perform their acrobatics in his stomach. Thank goodness Rin isn't looking at him.

"Have you done most of the things you wanted to do?" he asks.

"I've done a few," Rin says. He stops walking, then sits right in the sand, a muffled _thud_ punctuating his impact. Haruka hesitates, then sits beside him.

"I haven't started my class readings, though," Rin continues, as though it's completely normal to suddenly take a seat in the middle of a walk.

"You should," Haruka says.

Rin drapes his arms around his knees. "Yeah, but it's hard to fit the time for homework in between everything else I have to do. I have to run in the morning, and then I have to swim in the morning. I have to do the dishes in the sink."

"Wow, that sounds tough."

Rin laughs, tilting his head to look at Haruka. "It's really tough. My family expects too much of me. I also have to do muscle training."

"So is it afternoon by then?"

"Yeah, but I have to run again in the PM. And if I can, swim again. And eat a few times between all of that. Oh yeah, and help Makoto with English." Softer, but with a growing smile, he says, "And I have to see you."

Haruka looks back at the ocean, knowing that the smile on his face will be enough of an answer to that. Though he says anyway, "You still have to do your homework."

He feels Rin's eyes on him for long moment. Then Rin's fingers brush against his cheek, hardly touching at all. He feels a jolt – in his chest but racing to every end of his body as well. Rin's hand is gone quickly.

"You had a thing in your hair," Rin says, just as quickly.

"A thing?" Haruka says, wondering if Rin isn't just making it up, and kind of hoping he is. He risks a glance. Rin's hands are clamped together over his knees.

"A thing," Rin says. He lies back in the sand, hands going behind his head. He can only be feigning his calmness; it wouldn't be fair for Haruka to be the only one whose pulse is going a mile a minute.

"Question," Rin says, eyes on the sky. "I have to pick my major still. Do you think I should do Economics or International Relations?"

Haruka looks at his lips, his cheeks, his forehead bared by the hair falling to both sides. Rin is so pretty. So handsome – he probably wouldn't like 'pretty', would he?

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because," Rin says, sounding very much like he'd like to roll his eyes. A slight frown takes to his face. His mouth. His lips. "I want your opinion."

"Weren't you thinking about English a while ago?"

Rin grins at him. "You remembered?

"I remembered," Haruka said, parroting Rin's words because he's losing thread of the conversation. He makes himself focus. "And I don't know. It's your decision. You should pick what you like best."

Rin sighs. "Well, I like them both. And both could be useful, in case I need a backup plan. I'm gonna swim for a long time, Haru!" he says under Haruka's sudden scrutiny. "I'm just saying, I'm thinking smart from all sides. I'm at a good school, I might as well get a good degree too."

"I didn't like Economics," Haruka says.

"Wow, great," Rin says sarcastically. "Guess I'll just do International Relations then."

"Only do it if you want to."

"You aren't being helpful at all."

There's sand in Rin's hair – or rather, his hair is in the sand. Haruka wants to say it – _There's something in your hair_ – and then touch it, brush what's left on Rin's forehead off.

Instead, he says, "It's your decision. You'll be able to make up your mind. And you'll have to do your homework."

"Do you believe in me, Haru?"

Rin says it jokingly, but Haruka almost loses his composure because yes, he believes in Rin so much it's nearly overwhelming.

Rin sees something in his expression that makes his smile fade a bit. "What?" he says. He starts to reach for Haruka, but his hand stills between them and then falls back into the sand.

"I believe in you," Haruka says.

Rin turns his face away, but Haruka can still see his ear, blushing bright red. Haruka wants to take his hand and press it to his cheek, but instead he curls his fingers into the sand, and bites his lip, and stares out at the water.

Rin makes him run next – or, rather, Rin says, "I'm gonna run some more, you can go home if you want," so casually that Haruka knows he doesn't want him to go home at all.

Haruka doesn't want to go home either. So they backtrack for their shoes, and then reverse again back along the beach. When it starts drizzling Rin says, "Let's keep going, it'll stay light!"

The droplets cling like dew, but the water is warm and the air is too. By the time they make it back to Rin's house their clothes aren't wet, but they are damp, and their shoes squeak as they take them off in the entranceway.

"Nothing like running in the rain," Rin says, breathless and grinning, pushing his hair up off his forehead. He's breathless, but he's breathtaking. Haruka agrees – there is nothing like running in the rain.

It's still raining when Rin walks Haruka to the station. The droplets patter against their umbrellas – Rin gave Haruka the plain black one, and is using the polka-dot one Gou forgot at home – and drip out of the trees and off of roofs.

"I'll get your clothes back to you soon," Rin says when they step onto the platform. He gave Haruka a dry shirt of his to change into ("Thank god I don't have any weird fish on my clothes"), and still has the clothes he borrowed this morning.

"You don't have to rush. I know you'll have a hard time with all those dishes."

Rin jabs an elbow into his arm, and Haruka elbows him right back. And then Rin says "Hey," and slips his hand into Haruka's, stopping him in front of the route map. "Um, before you go…"

Rin glances around. It's obvious what he's asking permission for.

It's risky, maybe. The route map isn't much cover; they're still visible. But the station is empty and the surroundings are rain-quiet, and Haruka doesn't feel anxious at all. The water soothes him. Rin soothes him. Either, both, it doesn't matter.

He says, "Okay."

Their umbrellas collide overhead, and Rin glances up, an embarrassed smile taking to his lips. He lowers his umbrella so it hangs over his shoulder, and steps beneath Haruka's. He squeezes Haruka's hand a little bit tighter.

When Rin kisses him, Haruka wishes Rin would hold him halfway between this and how he did the night before, but he doesn't know how to ask for it.

* * *

The thing is, he's noticed that Rin is being weird about touching him. It's happened since he pushed Rin away mid-kiss, but it might have happened before then, too. He isn't sure how much he's projecting because of worry or how much he's just mixing days around. Things are moving fast and slow and sometimes he feels like he's been snatched up into a daydream.

Sometimes Rin will touch him with no qualms – things like holding his hand, which Rin can do quite boldly when there is kissing involved too (and when they're falling asleep together, Haruka remembers giddily).

But then sometimes Rin will touch his hand, and jerk back like he didn't mean to. Sometimes he'll reach like he's going to touch Haruka, like he started doing at the beach, but then he'll abort suddenly and Haruka will wonder what's wrong – and wonder if it's him, and wonder if Rin thinks he doesn't want to be touched at all.

He notices it when Rin hands him back his clothes in the locker room the day after they kissed goodbye at the station. When their hands bump, Rin pulls back like he's been burned.

But on the train to his place their thighs touch as they sit side by side.

But when Rin is leaving later and they're kissing goodbye in the entranceway, Rin puts a hand on his hip and Haruka just has time to feel a shiver building in his chest, before Rin pulls away to say, "So, I'll see you tomorrow," not quite meeting his eyes.

That's Thursday. On Friday, Rin drops in for a short while after helping Makoto with English again. Haruka is washing out the pot that Mrs. Tachibana sent leftovers over in, and thinking that he should whip something up someday soon and bring it over as repayment. Rin has finally cracked open his school reading in the living room.

At least this is what Haruka thinks, until he hears the footsteps, the yawn. "So bored," Rin says, coming up behind him. A chin props itself on his shoulder.

"I told you I didn't have anything fun for you to do here," Haruka says, working very hard to sound very calm. Rin smells good today.

Rin hums. "Watching you wash the dishes is more fun than reading that book. You have nice technique."

"What does that mean?"

"I dunno."

Rin's chin shifts a bit, kneading Haruka's shoulder. It tickles, and Haruka's shoulder twitches, and Rin laughs quietly.

And then everything stops – Rin stops moving, Haruka's hands still beneath the faucet. There is a feeling. In a moment of clarity, Haruka is sure that Rin wants to hug him. And Haruka imagines Rin's arms going around him, Rin warm against his back, and is pretty sure he wants that too.

But Rin lifts his chin away and retreats to the living room without another word. The feeling has turned strange. Haruka regrets it as though something passed between them, even though nothing happened at all.

He knows he should just _say something_ , but he also knows that when he does, it will come out all wrong. He can feel it. He dreads it. He understands what's going on as much as he tries to ignore it.

On Saturday afternoon he finally says, "Why do you do that?"

They're in his room. His lesson plan sits ignored on his desk even though Rin said he wanted to look at it.

They'd been kissing and it was lasting longer. Rin had opened his mouth a little bit more and Haruka had too, and it was slow and Haruka was liking it very much, until Rin's hands touched his sides with just enough pressure for Haruka to feel them flinch away.

"What?" Rin says. His arms are still bent between them.

"That," Haruka says, looking at Rin's hands. "You keep almost touching me but not touching me."

Rin lowers his arms the rest of the way. He suddenly dons the downcast expression of someone about to face the inevitable thing they have been dreading. Quietly, he says, "I just didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"What?"

Rin's eyes flit past Haruka toward the door, betraying how little he wants to have this conversation. "Haru…you recoiled from me a few days ago, when we were here, and I was kissing you, remember?" His blunt tone is at odds with the embarrassed flush on his face.

"I remember," Haruka says, feeling his face go just as red. "But that was just because you surprised me. I don't do that every time you touch me."

"Okay, but it's not like I know where the line is that I can't cross," Rin says painstakingly. "I'm trying to be careful, because…because I don't want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable around me, like I said."

"Well, you are. It –" Haruka doesn't want to say it. He feels too vulnerable even thinking it, but he knows he has to be honest. "It makes me feel like you think there's something wrong with me."

Rin's eyes go wide. "I don't think that at all! Haru!"

Haruka doesn't answer.

Rin runs a hand through his hair. "It's just – I know this is new for you, okay? It's new for me too, but I know, like, a relationship isn't something you've thought of before so I…I don't really know how to go about this with you. I don't know what I'm doing."

"I think it's been going fine," Haruka says stubbornly.

"Kind of, until I do something that's not okay with you! I don't have it all predicted in my head. I don't go into this with that much certainty."

"You can ask questions."

"Or you can say things without me having to ask!" Rin snaps back. But his voice loses its edge when he says, "And I do ask. But I don't want this –" He motions at the both of them "– to become a game of twenty questions."

Haruka's arms are crossed tightly, which is probably not the best posture to have when he says, "Well, you can go ahead and touch me more."

"Haru, it's not…" Rin runs his hand through his hair again. "It's not that easy. Things like this aren't that easy, and dealing with you isn't that easy. You… You're not gonna like hearing this, but you do this thing where like, if you don't react to something within a timeframe you set for yourself, you just bottle it all up. It's fucking hard to deal with! I'm over here second-guessing things left and right when you could just _tell_ me what's up and it'd all be cleared up and we wouldn't have to have these –" He waves his arms wildly "– these after-the-fact conversations where we just get mad at each other."

"You're the one getting mad."

"I'm not mad!" Rin says, a messy spill of exasperation. "I'm just frustrated that us getting through something as simple as what this conversation should be is spiraling into this mess. The point is, I'm careful when we're kissing and when I touch you in new ways because I don't want to force anything on you. I don't want to make you do things for me."

Haruka bristles. This is exactly what he hates – that Rin is treating him like something fragile and strange. "What are you talking about?"

Rin gives him a pained look. "Haru, please."

"What are you talking about?" Haruka pushes, words clipped. A dark emotion settles into him, rooting itself deep. He wants to lock himself into his room and be alone and not have to listen to any more of this, but also he's coming dangerously close to wanting to yell.

"Have you heard yourself lately?" Rin says. "When I ask if I can kiss you, when I ask if something's okay, you say things like 'You can' and 'Okay', like you're just letting me do things. But, like, do you want any of it? You've never said you want any of it."

Haruka feels a moment's confusion cutting through the anger, and he wants to scoff. That can't be true. Of course he's said he wants to be with Rin. Of course…he's said it…

"Haru, there are a lot of things I want to do when I'm with you. Like –" Some of the redness has been leaving Rin's cheeks, but they flare up again. "Like hold your hand. Hold you. I just want to hold you, Haru. Be close to you. But I don't want to do something that you don't want."

"How can you know what I want and don't want if you're just going off of one reaction? You never asked how I felt."

"What the hell was I supposed to think, when you pushed me away like that?! I thought, 'Okay, he doesn't like when I get that close to him,' and you didn't tell me a single thing to make me think otherwise!"

"You didn't give me time!" Haruka yells. He doesn't want this. He's so tired of them colliding. So tired of them ending back here.

"God, this is what I'm talking about! What am I supposed to do? Give you a buffer zone each time I do or say something, so you can put together a response, and then we can carry on? That's not real life, Haru! Things are spontaneous and sometimes you have to be able to react and communicate without planning it all out in your head!"

But Haruka is going to hold onto this one. What Rin is saying is true, but _this time_ Haruka knows he isn't completely in the wrong.

"You didn't give me _any_ time to respond! I could have said something if you didn't sweep it aside right away! Don't pretend that you didn't! You didn't want to talk about it either!" He clenches his fists, swallows down the desire to keep shouting. His voice shakes when he continues, but he's able to keep it from rising again. "It was fast, and it surprised me. There, that's my response. Nobody's ever touched me like that. It was a knee-jerk reaction. It doesn't mean I don't want to be close to you."

"How close do you want to be to me?" Rin says quickly. There is a desperate look in his eyes, demanding an answer, some understanding, right now.

"I don't…I don't know," Haruka says, feeling just as desperate. "Closer, but…Rin, I'm not like you, I don't know how to just… _be_ with people. It's not easy for me. This, with you, I want to get better at it but I don't know what I'm doing either."

Rin bites his lip, looks to the side. For several long moments he gathers his thoughts, and Haruka holds his breath.

"Haru, I don't mind going slow. I get to see you so fucking little that I just want to spend time with you in any way that I can. I don't want you to feel like I think there's something wrong with you. That's not what I wanted to do. I want you to be comfortable with me."

He looks at Haruka, brow pinched. His voice is soft and thin. Defeated. "I just don't have a damn clue what you're thinking, so if you would just…tell me things sometimes? Let me know what's on your mind. Tell me what you want. Initiate things. So I'd know where we both stand. I can't do everything first, Haru."

Haruka nods stiffly. "Okay."

"And, I mean, I'm pretty sure I know your answer by now, but you never even told me that you like me back."

What's left of the anger crumbles away, falling into the abyss newly formed in the pit of Haruka's stomach. He's thought it so many times, that he likes Rin so much. He's felt it in wave upon wave. Rin's brightness, his warmth, his humor, his drive.

But he hasn't told Rin any of it.

"I'm sorry." The apology tumbles out. He feels wretched.

And Rin can tell, and crosses the space between them and wraps him in a hug.

Haruka's throat closes up so suddenly it takes everything in him not to let out a whimper of surprise. His arms are pinned tight to his body, so he curls his fingers into the bottom of Rin's shirt, drops his forehead onto Rin's shoulder.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm sorry."

Rin holds on tighter. "Don't say that. It's fine. This isn't getting us anywhere."

Haruka thinks it might be, or it could, but he stops nonetheless. If it will make Rin hurt less.

"I'm not mad," Rin says. "I'm really not." He gives Haruka a little shake. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"It's just –" Rin pulls back, but puts his hands on Haruka's shoulders. He lets out a choked laugh – he looks so _sad_. "I really, _really_ like you. But I wanna know how you feel too, so from now on, please help me out a bit more."

"I will," Haruka promises.

Rin holds his eyes for a long while, and finally gives him a small smile. "I think I should probably go now, huh?"

"You can stay."

Rin looks down. "I think I should probably go."

And so he gives Haruka's shoulders one last squeeze, and then he leaves.

Haruka listens to him go down the stairs, listens to him getting his shoes on, listens to the front door open and then close. It feels exactly like what happened half a year ago on a cold winter's morning.

* * *

"It sounds like you two need to talk again," Makoto says.

They sit on the steps between his and Haruka's houses. Makoto had been the one to spot Haruka on the steps, and came out to sit beside him. Haruka hadn't told him much at all, but it was still enough for Makoto to come to the conclusion that it involved him and Rin, like it usually does. Him and Rin and collisions.

"No we don't," Haruka says shortly. "That's the problem. We try to talk and end up saying all the wrong things. He makes me so _angry_."

It's an easier word to say than 'sad', which would require some explaining that he doesn't feel up to giving.

But he's had time to think, and has ended up angry again. Though 'frustrated' would be putting it better – everything is so frustrating. Rin frustrates him. He frustrates himself. It's all so new and confusing, and so old and typical.

Makoto chuckles. "I'm sure you two have that in common."

This doesn't alleviate Haruka's bad mood. "We're friends. We shouldn't be doing this to each other," he mumbles at his knees.

"Friends are allowed to get mad at each other, you know," Makoto says pointedly.

Haruka avoids his eyes. It's true that he's rarely gotten mad at Makoto, and never enough to full-on yell at him, but he isn't trying to compare the friendship he has with Makoto to the one he has with Rin. It isn't that simple, and Makoto doesn't know half of what's going on.

"Even though you and Rin butt heads, you have something much stronger than the force of your opposition."

Now Haruka does glance over, frowning bemusedly. "That's really philosophical."

"Yeah." Makoto laughs. "I read something like that in one of my school books, and it just came back to me right now. Which means," he says, cranking his smile up several notches, "that it must be true."

Haruka looks at the ocean. A small procession of boats approaches the docks. Gulls circle something in the water; as he watches, one dives straight down.

"You two butt heads, but you don't let that get in the way of things," Makoto says. "You always find ways around it, instead of letting it stand in the way of your friendship."

"But I'm tired of having to do that. I'm tired of butting heads in the first place. It feels so inevitable, and it's exhausting. Do you really think that's okay in a friendship?"

"You're making it out to be worse than it is, aren't you?" Makoto says easily. "You don't like confrontation so it seems worse to you, but you two never do anything purposely cruel to each other. You never try to hurt each other. Right? You just misunderstand. And _that's_ inevitable, if you spend so much time apart."

Haruka is still reluctant to let Makoto's words make him feel better, because he thinks that's a bit like cheating – he hasn't actually solved anything with Rin. Still, he's glad for Makoto's wisdom, however much of it is borrowed from school books. Haruka knows most of it is genuine perceptiveness, which might spell trouble in the future if he doesn't figure out what he has with Rin, and how much he can reveal to the rest of their friends. When Rin had left, he had still been speaking of a future, so Haruka knows they aren't ruined yet.

"I think you two need to take care of each other," Makoto says, sounding so much like Gou that Haruka is half convinced he must have spoken with her earlier. "You understand things about each other that other people don't. Even me." He laughs again, but he looks so tired. Haruka hopes that when he goes abroad to study, he takes it easy on himself and has fun instead of studying all the time. At least he won't have to try to cheer Haruka up all the time.

And Haruka hopes that he and Rin can learn to take care of each other better, can learn to actually understand each other like Makoto believes they already do. It should be so easy, with Rin liking him and him liking Rin back.

He lets out a breath, which turns into a long yawn. Makoto catches it, and then says, "Want to go running? It might wake us up."

The sky is gray, the clouds are gray, the water is gray. Even the sand, as they run along it, is gray. Haruka's emotions are gray, too.

Before Rin, he never imagined himself in a romantic relationship, never felt any drive to pursue something of the sort. And now that he's found himself in something mutual, the very thought of losing it feels as awful as if he's lost it already.

But this mutual thing is with Rin, and that makes it mutually messy, and so much harder than he ever thought wanting to be with someone could be. Every time something goes right, something goes just as wrong. It's like they're compulsively bad at communicating, like misreading each other is hardwired into them and they can't be what they are to each other without it.

He's afraid that the more they move forward, the more they will collide, until they have worn each other so thin that there is nothing left worth pursuing.


	17. Smolder (Summer - part 7)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, and more fiery than ever! God, I can't believe I once thought it'd be possible, even plausible, to update once a month. As always, THANK YOU for your support and patience! The majority of my focus when it comes to writing these days is going towards a YA novel I've been working on for a very long time now; fanfic just comes in between, I'm sorry to say. But my birthday is in a couple days, and I thought what better way to celebrate than give you all a gift? LD will be completed, it'll just take a while. Next chapter is the last summer chap, though! This one is, well, smoochy.

He doesn't see Rin at the rec center on Sunday, not one glimpse of him all morning. The bleachers, once the parents have whisked away their children, are empty – and Haruka stays an extra lesson to make sure. Zaki is the last to leave; she says something to him, something concerned, maybe, but Haruka brushes it off with a wave of his hand. Then it's just him and the pool, the last ripples stilling, the gutters growing quieter. 

Rin isn't one to make himself difficult to find when he wants to be found, which means Rin didn't come today. Or at the very least, he's avoiding being here when Haruka is.

The train ride home is a wearying cycle of emotions, a different one with each lurch or bump in the track. Sad, to helpless, to angry, back to sad again, taking him all the way home. Or, not quite home.

When Makoto answers the door, the first thing he says to Haruka, little creases of apology forming on his forehead, is, "Rin isn't coming over today." He says something else, something concerned just like Zaki, but like with Zaki, Haruka waves it off and leaves.

Things cycle back to anger again. He thought they left avoidance behind them in the spring, but no, apparently they're still playing the same petulant game.

Guilt blooms from the pit of his stomach like an ink spill. He hates thinking so disparagingly of Rin, when the Rin in his mind's eye is smiling and sweet. And worried. And out of his depth because he's trying to deal with Haruka, who doesn't even know how to deal with himself.

_I'll talk to him,_ Haruka promises himself. _Tomorrow._

* * *

So of course tomorrow comes too quickly. Not even six hours into it Haruka is awake and the sky is lightening, trying to push its way around the corners of his curtains. It's still and quiet in his room, and far away he can just make out the ocean sighing. Just a Monday morning.

If he was still in school, he'd be leaving with Makoto soon. Now he has the option of lying in bed all day in the half-light, letting the dust settle imperceptibly over his skin, letting the world go by while he keeps nothingness for company.

He eventually rolls over. His phone lies beside his pillow, no indicator light flashing. No messages from Rin, which means things really do rest on his shoulders now. A reason to get up, then. A daunting reason, but if he throws his legs out of bed, and gets dressed, and walks out the front door, all without stopping to think too hard, then he can make it to the station and onto the train, and before he knows it he'll be getting off at Rin's stop.

Except he's twenty minutes early for the train, and every single one of those minutes is a battle with himself to not turn tail and go straight back home. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, containing his momentum to those small motions. The clouds are thin and wispy, tinted the last shades of dawn and caught in a breeze that floats them on by with taunting speed. Finally Haruka is on his way, tracks rattling beneath him and world blurring by through the window.

He only realizes the flaw in his plan when he's traveling on his own two feet again, footfalls quiet on the asphalt of an even quieter road. So many of the windows all around are still dark. It's too early to ring on Rin's doorbell.

He stops at the front step, takes out his phone, and texts: _Are you home?_

The seconds feel like minutes, and then are minutes. He sits and waits for the door behind him to open. He doesn't know which would be more embarrassing – Rin or Mrs. Matsuoka stumbling upon him. The breeze pricks against his arms, cool whereas before it was just a sensation with no temperature. The ocean is much closer; its sighs sound exasperated. Haruka feels even more intrusive, and wonders if he should leave.

As it so happens, he doesn't have to wait for the door at all. Rin jogs around the corner just then, a flash of red hair and a bright yellow tracksuit against shadowed walls. Haruka can tell exactly when Rin notices him – Rin's head lifts, his strides slow, he looks surprised even though Haruka can't even make out his face.

The seconds feel like minutes again, as Rin approaches at a walk. Haruka wonders if Rin is really so reluctant to see him.

"Did you get my message?" he asks once Rin has reached him. The awkwardness is like a chokehold; he feels himself forcing the words out. It doesn't help that he's still sitting on the step, and Rin remains standing before him.

"I left my phone inside." Rin's hands are in the pockets of his thin runner's jacket. Haruka wonders how long he's been awake – his cheeks are flushed and his hair wind-blown as though he's been running for a while.

"It's fine. I was just asking if you were here."

"Well, I am now."

Something expectant hangs in the air. Rin looks squarely at him, patient and nothing else. _I missed you,_ Haruka wants to say, is reluctant to say.

"Can we talk?"

Rin doesn't smile. "Yeah, we should."

Haruka follows him through some alleys, a shortcut to the beach. The smell of the sea clings to the walls, damp and salty and fresh in the shadows. Rin walks with his hands still in his pockets, his attention ahead and not behind. He doesn't offer up conversation. When they reach the beach he leads them to a nondescript spot in the sand, where they sit. Low tide offers more of its sighs.

Finally, Haruka can't take the silence any longer. "I'm sorry," he says. It's woefully inadequate, so he's startled when Rin says, "Me too."

He'd been staring hard at the water, afraid to see anything he wouldn't like on Rin's face, but now he looks over. Concentration pulls Rin's lips down into a frown. Maybe Rin had been trying to find the right thing to say this whole time, too.

Slowly, and with a great deal of difficulty, Haruka says, "I'm sorry for giving you wrong impressions, and I'm sorry if I made you think that I'm….scared…" He still doesn't like the taste or weight of the word in his mouth. He makes a vague motion with his hand, meant to encompass the both of them and who knows what else "…of this. It's…I'm not…" Rin's eyes are on the sand; the early light makes his skin glow golden. Haruka doubles up his courage and plows on. "I'm not afraid of this, or of you, it's just…this in general…maybe I am scared because I don't know what to do but it's not…" He expels a helpless breath of air and gives up.

Rin nods. "I know. Honestly, I get it. I really do."

Haruka swallows. He looks away, out at the ocean again. "I like you," he says, before he can coach himself out of it. A beat of panic follows the words, or maybe it's a burst of adrenaline, the thrill of voicing something he's guarded so close.

"I know," Rin says, but his voice is oddly void. "I already knew."

Haruka glances at him, and Rin still doesn't look back.

He knows he likes Rin, he knows it's a lot, but he doesn't know how much. He doesn't know how to explain it to put Rin at ease. Rin is attractive. Rin is _gorgeous._ Rin makes him feel light. Rin works so hard and smiles so bright. Rin likes making people laugh and pretending to be offended when people laugh at him. Does that make Rin cute? Haruka's chest fills with a nervous heat. Probably. When Rin touches him, he feels like Rin has so much more to give and he wants to find out what all of that is.

How can he say all of this without sounding absurd? Rin is _Rin._ Why can't he just say that and have it be enough?

"I don't want to give up," he says. "Even if we fight, I don't want to give up on this. I'm happy when I'm with you."

"Except when you're not," Rin says, but there's a little laugh there. Sardonic or not, it's the first good sign. "Haru, I've liked you for _so long_. I'm not just going to give up on this right away."

"I think I'm scared that I won't live up to your expectations, and you'll just be disappointed because I'm a lot more boring and difficult than you thought I would be." It's a definite relief to get those words out. Haruka hadn't even realized he'd been harboring them until they'd found their way into the air between them.

"You aren't boring," Rin says.

"Am I difficult?"

"Well, yeah, but that's just you." Rin turns a small smile on him, finally. "I'm kidding."

"No you're not."

"No, you're right. I'm not. But I like that part of you."

"Except for when you don't."

Rin's smile is full-blown now. Haruka's is as well, which surprises him. He reaches over and takes Rin's hand, clumsily works their fingers together. Rin grips back, his smile nearly too bright to look at. Haruka doesn't understand how they went from silence to this, has absolutely no idea what he did right, but it's wonderful to smile and he doesn't want to let that feeling go.

"I already knew you liked me," Rin says. "I shouldn't demand you to tell me things if I already know how you feel. I don't _need_ everything in words. I just need to keep telling myself that. To trust you, and to trust how I feel."

"I'll still get better with words, though."

Rin's smile falters, a moment of hesitation. "I like you," he says, voice going soft.

This time, Haruka knows how to answer.

"I like you too."

Rin lets out an elated "Hah!" and falls backward into the sand. "I think we'll be fine, Haru."

Their hands are still linked, and Haruka thinks so too.

* * *

Tuesday is a regular day at the office – manning the front desk, cleaning out conference rooms, sweeping up the gym. Except it's a better-than-usual day at the office, because he and Rin are okay again. He smiles at every visitor in the halls, enjoys watching the cars go by in the narrow sliver of the parking lot he can see through the front doors. It's hard to believe he was ever so gloomy about things, when setting them right was so easy.

Things are so okay that when Haruka turns the corner after vacuuming conference room 5B and sees Rin leaning against the front desk waiting for him, the butterflies flutter so strongly in his chest they almost bowl him over.

"I'm not off for another ten minutes," he says, trying to sound calm when he slips behind the desk. He finds a note from Kaji-san set atop a stack of papers – _'Can you double check these numbers against what we have on file?'_

"I know," Rin says, folding his arms on top of the counter and leaning in. A grin toys at the corners of his mouth. "I just wanted to say hi."

"Are you done training?" Haruka asks. He pushes the papers aside for later, folds his arms, and leans forward as well, trying not to let Rin's smile cajole him into giving one of his own.

"For now," Rin says. "Did you leave your phone at home? Rei says you aren't replying to his birthday text."

Haruka's eyes go wide. "I forgot."

"Forgot your phone, or that it was your birthday?"

"Shut up," Haruka grumbles, because Rin has buried his face in his arms to quiet his sniggers.

"What's that?" Kaji-san says loudly, appearing beside Rin with another stack of paperwork. Rin jumps. "Nanase, it's your birthday? Why didn't you say so? C'mon, get outta here, have some fun!"

Before he's fully realized what's going on, Haruka finds himself shooed out front, Rin at his side. Rin laughs hard at the look on his face, and then gives the back of his hand a tap. "C'mon, let's go."

"Where are we going?" Haruka asks.

"You'll see."

"You planned something for me, didn't you?"

"Of course not," Rin says, but his ears betray him, glowing red. His smile betrays him, too.

They ride the train with their knees touching. Once the woman across the way gets off, Rin takes Haruka's hand, runs the pads of his fingers along the domes of Haruka's fingernails, feels each knuckle beneath his fingertips like they're something wonderful. Haruka turns his face away, bites down on his smile.

When they're in front of Haruka's front door, Rin says into his ear, "Just pretend to be surprised at least, okay?" before giving his hand one last squeeze.

Haruka prepares for the worst, prepares for the best. He opens the door.

Confetti flies in his face, along with balloons and streamers, and a whole lot of noise. He stumbles back, almost slips off of the step but Rin catches him around the waist, props him back up again.

Makoto's voice rise over the flurry: "Nagisa! That's enough!" And then Nagisa crows, from beyond the balloon that hits Haruka in the face, "Happy birthday, Haru-chan!"

Nagisa and Makoto stand in the entranceway, party hats on their heads, a mess of colored confetti settling to the floor before them. Haruka blinks at them, overwhelmed, and then he looks over at Rin.

"I was surprised."

They all laugh. Rin slings an arm over his shoulders and corrals him inside.

There's a cake that's much too large – triple-decker with bright blue icing, which Nagisa and Makoto bought on the way over – and no presents because, according to Makoto, "We knew you wouldn't want any." Haruka tells them that they're more than enough, which is Nagisa's cue to wax poetic about friendship, and then slam Haruka's face into the cake. It's been too long since they've been able to spend time together.

"Mako-chan was soooo nervous, but I told him everybody's gotta cut class at least once in their life, right? I mean, seriously, there's perfect attendance and there's _perfect_ attendance and it's not like…"

The sugar has made Nagisa hyper; his mouth runs away from him, from them all. No matter, as the rest of them are also full of cake, full of laughter. Haruka is still finding dried bits of icing in his hair, and no matter what he does he can't get the smell of sugar out of his nostrils. Earlier, when nobody else was looking, Rin had swiped a bit of icing from Haruka's cheek and sucked it off his finger, and Haruka is still trying to shake that memory from his brain.

"I had to pass by my own _house_ to get here!" Makoto is saying. "Do you know how _dangerous_ that was? My mom might have seen me and I won't know until I get home and she's ready to gut me!"

"Tell her it was for Haru's birthday, she'd forgive that," Rin says, oblivious to the thin smudge of blue on his own chin.

They talk more and laugh more, and Nagisa eats more cake while they slouch in front of the TV. Nagisa has Rei's school schedule down pat, so they call him during one of the ten minute gaps between his classes. They hear him breathing hard in his rush to get from one end of his campus to the other, but he still makes sure to fill every minute with conversation, finishing up when he reaches his classroom with: "Haruka-senpai, if you're running up and down those concrete steps every morning, might I suggest shock-absorbing insoles to ease the impact on your knees?"

Afterwards they find a TV movie, a cheap suspense flick that gives them even more to laugh at. Sitting against the table, cushions stuffed behind their backs, Haruka feels bone-deep contentment. Sitting next to Rin, their shoulders leaning together, he feels something stirring inside of him. A secret thrill, because nobody knows, or at least they probably don't know, what he and Rin really are.

Rin's arm rests on the table behind him. Well into the movie, long after he's stopped offering up his commentary, Rin shifts. His fingers touch the back of Haruka's neck, then run through the hair on his nape, quick and gentle. Just as quickly, Rin's hand is back on the table, though he leans just a little more weight against Haruka.

It takes several minutes for Haruka's pulse to slow back down.

Nagisa and Makoto leave first, because they both have parents to convince that they were in school. Haruka makes them take the rest of the cake between them, tells them they can think up explanations for it on their own (he knows the twins will be delighted).

When they're gone, it leaves him and Rin and the dishes to wash. There's such an ease to everything, such contentment in rubbing a sponge over each plate, in watching the suds rush down the drain. It's funny, that as someone who has never considered himself good with people or noise or energy, he always feels the most relaxed after the commotion of being with the people he cares for the most.

Rin comes up behind him, rests his chin on his shoulder. It's a familiar position, without the tension from last time.

"Thank you," Haruka says.

"Hm?"

It's a warm, satisfied sound. Haruka feels the vibration of it against his shoulder.

"You planned this, didn't you? Thank you."

"You're welcome," Rin says, looping his arms around Haruka's waist.

Haruka relaxes into it, pleased when Rin's arms tighten a bit. It's both casual and intimate, one of the many wonders of being with Rin. Today Rin smells faintly of chlorine, not of chemical ocean, but Haruka thinks he likes this better.

"It was…I had a good birthday. And I'm glad that you planned a party for me. I mean, not that you did something, but that you wanted to." Haruka's tongue feels awkward, as it always does when he tries for too many words at once. He sighs, sets the plate into the sink. "I wish I could say these things. I want to know how to say these things to you. How happy you make me, and things like that."

Rin turns his face into Haruka's neck. "You just did."

Haruka starts to turn around, and Rin's arms loosen enough to let him. Rin's eyebrows are up slightly; he's ready to let go. But Haruka is feeling deliciously fluttery, and kisses him instead.

It was the right decision. Rin melts, and Haruka melts against him _._ It amazes him that there are moments that are still this easy.

Rin takes hold of his face, brushes his thumbs over Haruka's cheeks. When Haruka pulls back, Rin smiles at him, so full of happiness.

"I already know it all," Rin says.

Haruka feels helpless, rooted to the spot, rooted to the affection in Rin's eyes, the care in Rin's palms cupping his face. It's a helplessness that he wants to feel more of, wants to be consumed by more fully. His stomach twists in emptiness and anticipation. He loops his arms around Rin's neck, pulls Rin's face back to his, and kisses him once more.

The relief is sudden. The neediness sated, the twist in his stomach gone. He shuts his eyes and it's like he's floating.

He wants Rin, helplessly, so much. _Infatuated_ , his mind supplies, and he can neither deny nor confirm it. Rin's mouth closes around his lower lip and he feels his entire stomach lurch, a bolt of adrenaline more jarring than anything he's known.

Abruptly, Rin takes his shoulders and pushes him back. There's a moment where Haruka's brain hasn't caught up yet – he blinks open his eyes and stares at Rin, and Rin stares back looking just as stunned. And then Rin starts to stutter over something.

"Before, we, um, if –" Rin licks his lips, swallows audibly. "I mean that, if, you and me…"

Feeling thick-witted, Haruka says, "Huh?"

Rin blurts too loudly, fingers digging into Haruka's arms, "I think we should talk about some stuff first, before, um, we keep going."

"Stuff like what?" Haruka says, head still spinning.

Rin's face glows. His eyes flit to the side. "Stuff like boundaries. And what you're comfortable with. What we're both comfortable with. And, um, we should probably bring up…s-sex." He claps his hands over his face. "God, I can't believe I stuttered."

Out of nowhere, Haruka is hit with a burst of hilarity. He snorts, and Rin parts his fingers to look at him.

"What?"

"I don't know," Haruka says, and he really doesn't. Maybe he's just left his brain behind entirely.

Rin lowers his hands, some of the fire draining from his face. "You're such a weirdo. But really, what I said…we probably should discuss it. Not for now," he says quickly. "Just like, for… _if…_ sometime in the future and not now, it's a thing that becomes, you know. You know what I'm saying, right? God, this is so embarrassing."

Haruka can tell that Rin is being serious, and knows he should be also. He understands the implications of what Rin wants to talk about – understands in the sense that he's not thinking of it head on, because if he did he'd be hit with the same mortification as Rin, so he's just touching it from the sides, letting himself understand without letting himself understand too closely.

As sincerely as he can, he says, "Do you want to have sex, Rin?"

Rin splutters, seems to choke on his tongue. After a coughing fit, he says defensively, "Well, generally speaking, so what if I do?"

"That's fine. I was just asking."

"Okay, well, I just answered."

"Do you want to have sex with me?"

"Haru, shut up! God!" Rin covers his face again. "How the fuck can you say that with a straight face!"

"You were the one who started the conversation. I'm taking it seriously."

"Stop smiling. You're making this worse."

"You aren't even looking at me. You don't know if I'm smiling."

"I can _hear_ it, smartass."

It's true, Haruka's smile has worked its way back onto his face. Again, he tempers it.

"Rin…" This is something he does have to know, though he probably already does. He needs to have it confirmed. "Do you want to have sex with me? Not now, but sometime?"

Rin looks at him over the tops of his fingers and croaks, "Yeah."

Haruka's stomach disappears for a moment. He doesn't know if the feeling is good or bad.

"Okay," he says. "I…don't know."

"That's fine."

"I just haven't thought about it much."

"That's fine. You don't have to. Just, you know, forget it for now." Rin casts his eyes down. "I don't want to rush you, even if it's just thinking. I just thought, you know, break's almost over and there's a lot of important stuff we haven't talked about yet."

"It's probably good that you brought it up," Haruka says. He takes Rin's fingers and gives them a squeeze, hoping he's getting the hang of this comfort thing. He sees Rin smile, so he thinks he must. "I'm sorry I don't have anything more to say about it right now."

"Haru." Rin lets out a quiet laugh, shakes his head. He tugs Haruka close, squeezes Haruka tight. "I can't believe you're my boyfriend."

Haruka laughs just as quietly. He can't believe it either. Cannot fathom how he ever became so lucky.

* * *

Six days. Rin has less than a week left. Six days only. Five, not counting Monday, because he leaves in the early morning. Four, not counting today, because today is already halfway over. It feels like yesterday – Haruka's birthday – was days away already. Time is slipping through his fingers.

Rin sits at the low table in the living room, cheek on his fist and eyes on his school book. His reading glasses slip down his nose, and again and again he thumbs them back up. Haruka has been watching him instead of working on his lesson plan, and Rin has been too immersed to notice. Haruka likes the glasses a lot. They make Rin look attractive in a way that doesn't make sense, just some pieces of plastic on his face.

"Are you hungry?" Haruka asks.

Without removing his eyes from the book or relaxing the furrow of concentration on his brow, Rin says, "No, I'm fine."

"Are you thirsty?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Are you bored?"

Rin glances at him. "Are _you?_ "

"No."

Rin starts grinning. He sets his pen in his book and leans across the table. "Yeah you are. You just don't wanna admit you're trying to distract me."

"I'm not. I was just wondering."

"Haru…" A teasing glint goes into Rin's eyes. He sets his glasses down. "If you distract me, I won't get my homework done in time. Do you really want me to fail?"

"You won't. You're too smart."

"You think so?" Rin says, looking pleased. He shuffles around the table on his knees, stops in front of Haruka. "Well then, if I'm so smart and studying is so unnecessary, what else is there to do?"

Haruka can think of something, and thinks he's gotten very shameless in a very short amount of time. Rin grins, no doubt sharing his thought, and leans down to kiss him.

They smile against each other's mouths, laughter coming out of their noses. And then their smiles relax away. Rin shuffles even closer, takes Haruka's face in his hands; Haruka has to prop a hand against the ground and crane his neck back, but it isn't uncomfortable. He feels things shifting between them again, feels it in the way Rin hums deep in his throat, feels it in the way he opens his mouth under Rin's, greedy for more.

Rin touches his sides but quickly pulls his hands back. Haruka grabs one of them, presses it to his chest. He hardly hears his own voice as he says, "It's okay, touch me."

Rin does, deliberately. His hand skims up to Haruka's shoulder, squeezes. His fingers splay generously against Haruka's neck, slip beneath the collar of Haruka's shirt. Today, Haruka learns the feeling of Rin's tongue against his own – kisses that smolder through him like cast aside inhibitions, that communicate what they're too clumsy to say with words. The thrill builds, teetering on the edge of tipping into too much.

He turns his face away, ears hot, neck burning. He pushes against Rin's shoulders – not hard, but enough for Rin to understand and sit back on his heels.

"Sorry," Haruka says, his voice cracking halfway through.

A little bit breathlessly, Rin says, "It's fine."

Haruka glances at him, and looks away when he sees the dazed want there. Rin's lips are dark, puffy; his eyes are out of focus.

Haruka admits, "I'm scared that you're going to get tired of me being scared."

"Haru…" Rin reaches out, but flinches before his fingers can touch Haruka's face.

"It's okay," Haruka says, tipping his chin up.

Rin touches his cheek, thumbs away a bit of saliva at the corner of his mouth – maybe they hadn't been the neatest.

"I just like being around you," Rin says. "Whatever you're okay with, I'm happy with too."

There is so much unfettered sincerity in his expression that Haruka wants to say _Kiss me again,_ but he knows the time for it has passed. They mustn't get ahead of themselves. One step at a time, one foot before the other.

Rin pulls his book around and sits cross-legged beside him. He nudges Haruka's knee. "Finish your lesson plan before I finish these two chapters, and I'll go running with you afterwards."

And so Haruka pulls his notebook closer, picks up his pen. He's distracted by Rin's chlorine smell, distracted by the _swish_ of each page turning. He looks from the corner of his eye at all those tiny English words Rin takes in. An athlete and an academic, opening the world up before him.

Rin could go on forever, but for Haruka, what comes after this summer?

Rin glances over, and frowns when he finds Haruka watching him. "Hey, what's wrong?"

_I like you so much,_ Haruka thinks. _You're amazing. You're so bright. Am I bright enough?_

"Nothing," he says. "I'm bored."

Rin takes his hand and laces their fingers together, then returns to his reading.

Six days, five days, four days, and then Rin will be gone back to America, back to forging his path, full steam ahead. Haruka misses him already, and wonders when he became so hopeless. He can't miss Rin yet, not when Rin is still here, hand gripping his beneath the table.

They still have four days.


	18. Ebb, Flow (Summer - part 8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, for your patience and your comments! I learned a cool fact while researching for this chapter - Japan is the top importer of Canadian maple syrup! Japan clearly knows what's up. On a more serious note: I will finish this fic. Fanfiction is not my main writing priority anymore, but I owe pretty much everything re: where I am with my writing today to this fic. It's planned out til the end, and it will be finished. But slowly. Please don't lose faith in me! We're well over halfway through!
> 
> On that note, Rin's summer break comes to a close in this chapter. It's about 99 percent rh, so I hope you enjoy! I've been waiting to publish the last scene, have literally had it written in my notebook, for going on three years now. What a milestone!

Four days, including today.

He can feel it – feels it this afternoon, as soon as he opens the door and sees Rin there – that they're both trying to get as much of each other as they can before they're separated again. Nothing more has been said, nothing more has been done, but the urgency is bright-eyed and quick-pulsed. It's in the way they go still at the sight of each other, and in the way Rin's backpack knocks into the doorframe when he comes inside, in the "Hey" they give to each other, like nervous laughs tumbling out of their mouths, like exhilaration.

But it's an urgency that can't really go anywhere, because the days are counting down, soon Rin will have to start saying his goodbyes, and before that he has schoolwork to complete.

Haruka busies himself however he can while Rin works, but there's only so much cleaning to do, only so much laundry. He ends up joining Rin in the living room, wanting to distract but knowing he shouldn't. His legs get restless so he stretches them out beneath the table, then refolds them, then props his chin on his palm and lets his eyes go out of focus. Rin scribbles into a notebook, _scritch-scratch scritch-scratch,_ and time passes _._

He wonders what they will do afterwards. Run? Swim? Get lunch?

Go on a date?

Could they do that? Have they?

"Haru…"

Haruka realizes he's been drumming his fingers against the table, and quickly stops. Rin looks up at him, head pillowed on his book.

"I still need to figure out what major to declare. Economics or International Relations."

Haruka processes the words slowly, mind still in a fog. "Are you asking me?"

"I mean…" Rin shrugs. "Yeah. I asked you before, didn't I?"

"And I told you it was your decision. It's not my future."

A subtle frown pulls at Rin's mouth. "I'm not asking you to make my decision for me, I just want your opinion."

"Does it matter?" Haruka says after a pause. He means it genuinely. Sometimes the things that make sense to Rin make little sense to him, and this is clearly one of those moments. "I haven't been studying what you've been studying. I don't know where you are, or what would be a good choice for you."

Rin sighs, a huff of displeasure that makes Haruka bristle.

"What?"

"Nothing," Rin says, with an edge that implies it isn't at all nothing. "I mean, I'm just asking for your advice is all. It's not that hard to give, is it?"

"I don't always have advice for everything. I'm not in school. I'm not doing what you're doing –"

"Oh my god, Haru. That doesn't _matter._ Don't you get it?"

Of course, of course… Bliss never lasts with them. They're hardwired against it, so Haruka's blood adopts a familiar simmer, a warning sign. "No. I don't get it. That's the problem."

Rin slaps his hand into his book, shattering any last illusion of peace. "What is there to get? I just – I just want an opinion. Something to weigh my thoughts against. Just some help while I'm trying to figure out what to do next."

"How am I supposed to know what you should do when I don't even know what I'm doing with myself?"

Rin throws up his hands. "God, fuck this! Forget it! I give up!" He slams his book shut and pulls his backpack over like he's going to pack up and leave.

"I don't have all the answers!" Haruka says desperately.

"I don't ask you to! But it'd be nice if you could give a fuck every once in a while!"

"I do care!"

As he watches Rin yank the zipper closed, Haruka is hit with a moment of clarity. Maybe they're trying to see too much of each other. Maybe they need the days when they aren't together. Maybe there's a limit to the time they can spend with each other, a too-much.

Rin pushes his backpack away suddenly, drops his head into his arms, and groans. "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight. I didn't mean all that."

Haruka is still trying to catch up. It's like he's just been tossed through a storm and ended up miles from where he thought he was. How do things always go so _wrong_ so quickly?

Rin peeks up at him. "I'm just…I'm just a little stressed, is all. I'm sorry."

Slowly, Haruka starts to understand – this isn't about them, but the fact that life carries on around them, and Rin is very much caught up in it. The peace now is tenuous. Carefully, Haruka says, "I didn't know you were that stressed."

"Yeah. It's my fault. I didn't tell you." Rin turns his face back into his arms. "I just want to make all the right decisions. There's a lot I have to think about, being on the team, and my classes, being overseas. I'm just getting a little stressed, thinking about all the things I have to figure out." Quieter, he says, "But you are too."

Haruka doesn't deny it, but it isn't a conversation he wants to have now, not with the volatile energy roiling around them.

"Haru…" Rin's voice is strained. "I don't want to fight all the time."

"Me neither."

"Shit, but I said some really awful stuff."

"But you didn't leave."

From Rin's silence, Haruka guesses at his answer. _Small consolation._

They let things fizzle out there, and eventually Rin pulls his bag back to him and finishes his work. But the damage is already done for the day, nothing irreparable but enough that there will be no swimming, or running, or lunch. They need that time apart, after all.

When Rin kisses Haruka at the door, he gently touches the shells of Haruka's ears. It feels apologetic, and makes Haruka shiver.

"Tomorrow?" Rin asks, pressing his forehead to Haruka's.

Haruka nods. "Tomorrow."

All they can do is try again next time.

* * *

Rin's text comes very late the following afternoon, so late that Haruka thought he'd forgotten, or was still upset. But his message proves otherwise:

_another thing on my summer to-do list: swimming in the ocean._

Where? Haruka wonders. Am I swimming with you? When? He sends back a simple _What?_

The reply is instantaneous. _come down to the beach._

The air is warm with dusk. The windows of Makoto's house glow yellow, and the horizon glows orange. Rin waits on the bottom step, ocean out in front of him, taking on the colors of the sky. He looks over his shoulder when he hears Haruka approaching, and lets out a loud laugh. "Of course you're in your jammers already."

Relief floods in fast, brimming with energy. Yesterday was yesterday, and today is today.

"We're swimming, aren't we?"

Rin slaps his hands to his thighs and gets to his feet, grinning broadly. "Of course. What else?"

An empty beach awaits them. Rin sheds his clothing along the sand piece by piece, leaving a trail behind them and revealing the jammers he, too, was already wearing. Haruka drops his change of shorts in the sand as well. They don't discuss what they're going to do, simply wade out through the low tide that ebbs and flows around them. Once they have gone far enough that their toes lose contact with the sand, they turn onto their backs and float.

For Haruka, being in the pool lately has always involved accomplishing some task or another. He hasn't disliked it, but he also hadn't realized until now just how much he missed simply _being_ in the water, with nothing else to do.

The ocean laps at his skin, cooling down but still holding onto some of the sun's warmth. The sky almost seems like the water now. Deep, tantalizingly still, endless. It sits above them, all the way up there, without a ripple or break it its landscape.

A deceptive calm, because just like high tide, the sky can crash and roar, bare its fangs and attack. But now, splashed purple and gold and pink, it's like a plane of glass, or the unbroken surface of a pool. Haruka is lost in the looking, his breathing slow, his body relaxed, everything okay. Everything is always okay in the water.

"We better not drift too far," Rin says. His words are soft, like he's in the same sort of trance.

"We could probably swim back," Haruka says, watching two dark shapes flutter across the sky. "But you're right, we shouldn't drift too far."

Neither makes a move to check for shore. Neither makes a move at all.

"I mean, the worst that can happen is we get separated," Rin says.

"I don't think that will happen."

Rin takes his hand. "Just in case, you know."

Haruka does look over now, and is met with a grin. He breathes out a laugh.

They make it back to shore just as the last rays of sun are slipping beneath the horizon. Rin gathers up his clothes, and then drops into the sand beside Haruka. Neither of them thought of towels, so the grains stick everywhere.

"The peacefulness here is so different," Rin says. "There's just something about home that feels like, I dunno, like I've always just woken up from the best nap of my life. Like I can actually take a break and the world won't end."

Haruka rolls onto his side, his skin picking up more sand. "But you still don't take a break."

Rin glances at him. "Yeah, well, it's the feeling of it that matters."

Haruka lets out a breath, steeling himself. "When I think of you," he says slowly, forcing himself to finish through the nerves that tell him to stop, "I think of how you're taking on the world. You've been to so many places, and will go to so many more. So, between your two choices, I think International Relations sounds more like you."

Rin's surprise melts into a smile. "But maybe you're just saying that 'cause you don't like Economics."

Haruka cracks a smile as well. "Maybe."

Rin turns onto his side, cheek to sand, hair already full of it. "I wish I could say more to help you, you know, with everything you're worried about, but I really don't know what to say."

Haruka holds Rin's eyes, mesmerized by them, mesmerized by how they look at him.

"Will you stay over tonight?"

"Yeah."

* * *

Facing away from each other in the dark, they peel off their jammers and pull on their shorts, and then make their way back up to Haruka's. They scrape as much sand off of themselves as they can on his doorstep, but plenty follows them inside. Haruka can feel the salt on his skin, and he itches for a shower.

Rin grumbles and groans his way up to Haruka's room – he's tired, he's been training so hard, he would sleep for a week if only he could. He dives onto Haruka's bed, lets his limbs take up all corners while Haruka rummages for something to sleep in.

"You should take a shower before you get comfortable."

"I know," Rin says, but he stretches languidly, fingertips touching the wall. "Just five more minutes."

"It isn't like you to be so lazy," Haruka says. But he likes Rin in his room like this, likes Rin sprawled out on his bed, easy and at home.

"Yeah, well, give me a pass this time?" Rin holds out a hand, and Haruka takes it and lets himself be pulled down beside him.

"There's still sand in your hair."

"Oh no," Rin says tiredly. His eyes fall shut. His grip on Haruka's hand loosens.

"Rin."

Haruka wouldn't put it past Rin to be out in a couple minutes, and wouldn't put it past himself to follow soon after.

"Rin."

"Hm?"

Haruka brushes his fingertips across Rin's cheek, watches Rin's mouth twitch in response.

"Does that tickle?"

"Just a little bit."

"I want to try something."

Haruka gets a glimpse of bleary-eyed curiosity before he kisses Rin's jaw. Rin tips his head back, hums sleepily. The hard line of bone beneath Haruka's lips elicits a tender feeling all through him, and he brushes them down Rin's jaw, and then onto his neck. It's funny; he feels the salt on his own skin, but not on Rin's.

He shifts closer, and Rin cranes his neck back more, luxuriously even, giving Haruka more access. The very tip of his tongue touches Rin's skin – and yes, it's salty after all.

He finds Rin's pulse, thrumming fast, and kisses it firmly. Rin's neck is so warm; it's such a pleasant feeling beneath his mouth. Rin's Adam's apple bobs, and Haruka follows it, lost in the wonder of what he's doing. Rin's skin tastes like the sea.

"Haru." A weak sound in Rin's throat. "Haru, you should really stop."

Haruka backs off slightly, and realizes that Rin has slung an arm over his face. Rin's ears are bright red.

"Are you okay?"

Rin blurts, "M'really fucking hard."

Haruka takes a second to understand, and then he scrambles away, cheeks flaming. In his mortification, he can't look at Rin's face.

"Sorry."

"S'okay," Rin mumbles. He turns onto his side, and Haruka chances a glance. Rin is curled in on himself, his eyes lowered. Their conversation from a few days ago comes rushing back.

Rin wants to have sex with him, but stopped them for Haruka's sake. There must be something wrong with him, kissing Rin like that and not even thinking about where it could go. He was enjoying himself because Rin was enjoying it. But could he enjoy it if it was turned the other way, if he was lying pliant while Rin sucked on his neck, and took off his clothes, and got closer than close…?

Can it be tender? Can it be safe? Can it be like kissing, that kind of intense that he can put a stop to when he needs to, or will it just be frightening? Thinking about it now just makes him want to retreat into himself and have nobody look at him.

"Haru… For the record, the last thing I am is upset."

Haruka turns to him. "Do you want to take a shower?" he says, too forcefully. "You can go first."

Rin's blush flares up again, but he goes.

By the time they have both washed away the salt and the sand, Rin's face is no longer red, but Haruka's stomach is still in knots. Rin climbs right into his bed, and while Haruka is relieved that he didn't have to voice the invitation out loud, Rin's forwardness unnerves him. He can't tell if the nonchalance is feigned or not, but he does his best to play along.

The bed creaks as he settles. A careful space lies between them.

"Good night," Haruka says softly.

Rin blinks up at the ceiling. "Night."

If he was anybody else, would Rin have stopped him?

The thought of Rin underneath anybody else, anybody else's lips on Rin's neck, Rin enjoying that kind of attention from anybody else, elicits a bolt of red-hot jealousy in Haruka's stomach, so vastly foreign from any other jealousy he's felt before that he knows immediately what it is. It's possessiveness, and it's ugly. It's irrational and unfounded, and once it has passed, in its place is the duller feeling of regret. He regrets that he's so difficult.

"I have my lessons in the morning," he says, still quiet, not wanting things to die out on this type of note again.

Rin turns his head toward him. A few locks of hair, still damp after the blow dryer, fall over his face. "Are you getting up early?"

Haruka shakes his head. "They don't start until ten."

Rin yawns. Through it, he asks, "You gonna run, though?"

"I don't know."

"Mm, okay. If you do, wake me up."

"Okay."

Rin's eyes fall shut, and he's out like a light.

With Rin sleeping soundly beside him, Haruka closes his eyes and waits for sleep as well.

* * *

"You said Rin's here?"

Makoto sits down at the table, alongside the remnants of Haruka's breakfast. He looks around, as though expecting Rin to melt out of the TV or phase through the wall.

When Haruka woke up, Rin was still sleeping soundly beside him, mouth slightly open and hand curled into the pillow. Haruka didn't have the heart to wake him.

"Yeah. He stayed over. Stop it."

"What?" Makoto says. "I'm not doing anything."

"You're smiling."

"Oh, and I'm not allowed to do that anymore?"

"Not like that. Stop it."

"Okay, okay," Makoto says, but he doesn't stop smiling. "I'm just remembering how you were so worried last week, and the next thing you know he plans you a surprise party and you two have a sleepover. It's like I said, you two just have to talk about things and everything patches right back up again."

Haruka sits across from him, takes a breath, and says, "Makoto, how much do you –"

There's a thump from upstairs, and then a shuffle of footsteps moving down the hall and stairs.

"Haru," Rin calls, voice groggy. "Why'd you let me sleep so late? I coulda gone running. You make food? I'm literally gonna die I'm so hungry. I can't believe it's already –" He stops at the entrance to the living room, in the process of rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I live less than a minute away," Makoto says, still smiling that loaded smile.

Deciding this is a good enough reason, Rin ambles through to the kitchen, and then makes a sound of delight. He comes back with a bowl in each hand. "Haru, I was just kidding! I didn't think you'd actually make me breakfast."

Haruka shrugs, avoiding Makoto's stare. "It's just leftovers."

Rin eats with gusto, cheeks bulging with fried egg and miso soup as he fends off the advances Makoto makes with Haruka's chopsticks. Haruka watches them in amusement, but his attention is drawn away when his phone starts ringing. A half hour until his lessons begin. He's cutting it close.

"No rest for the working, huh?" Makoto says, standing when Haruka does. "I should get home too. The twins have been waiting for the weekend to play this new video game with me. Rin, are you going to be by again before you leave?"

"Oh, um…" Rin swallows his mouthful with difficulty, thumping himself on the back as it goes down. "I'm gonna be with the family most of the day tomorrow, so I dunno…"

Makoto gives an understanding smile. "I'll tell the twins you say hello."

They hug in the entranceway, clapping each other on the back. Makoto leaves with a wave, and a "See you later, Haru." When he's out of earshot, Haruka turns to Rin.

"What are you doing today?"

Rin's smile is apologetic. "I'm hanging out at Samezuka for the last time before I leave. But I'll see you at the rec center tomorrow."

Haruka nods, unsatisfied. Rin rides the train with him into town, electing to run home from there before making his way out to Samezuka. They debark onto an unusually crowded platform, and hesitate over their goodbyes. There isn't much they can do with people all around. Another thing Haruka has never had to think about, but now will have to become more aware of. Being together at night, or in an empty train car, or on a platform cleared by the rain, are all very different from being with Rin someplace busy.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Rin promises.

"Okay."

Still, they do not turn away from each other. Could Rin slip in a quick squeeze of Haruka's hand? Could Haruka brush aside the lock of hair hanging between Rin's eyes? They've been standing around long enough, and are probably already drawing attention just for that.

In the end, Rin breaks eye contact first. "See you, Haru."

Haruka watches him head away. It isn't nearly enough, but for today it has to be.

* * *

The kids love the races they do at the end of each lesson. On Sunday they frog kick from one end of the shallow end to the other, kickboards helping steer them along, and sometimes Haruka gives them a little boost to help them as well. At the finish they swim right to the steps and then climb into the towels their parents hold open for them, giggling and raining water everywhere. One by one the splashes quiet, and one by one the parents beam.

It still surprises Haruka how much the kids like the lessons, and how much the parents like him. "Bye, Coach Nanase!" the young ones call, towels around them like capes as they zoom away, and their parents send him their weekly thanks before following.

Only once they're all gone does Haruka look toward where Rin and Zaki talk, leaning against the wall by the kickboard stand. Zaki pushes off the wall when she sees Haruka approaching, and sends them both a wave before going to collect her group from the bleachers.

Haruka stops in front of Rin, and raises his eyebrow at the grin Rin sends him.

"Come over for breakfast," Rin says.

"I already ate," Haruka says, trying to ignore the butterflies. If anything is obvious, it's the way Rin looks at him now, the warmth of his smile coupled with the easy slouch of his body, the way he looks like he's seconds away from reaching for Haruka. "And you did too. It's late."

"I know, but Gou's home and probably just getting up now, and she'd be happy to see you."

Of course Haruka agrees. Today is the last day – a thought that weighs on both of them through the quiet train ride to Rin's. Their knees knock together with every bump in the track. Their hands knock together on the walk down the streets.

When they reach Rin's house, they find Gou rummaging through the fridge in her pajamas. She glances over the top of the door, then straightens up in surprise.

"Oh! Haruka-senpai! Hi! Are you staying for breakfast? Mom's out already. I was thinking American breakfast. I've been craving bacon and syrup."

"She's a monster," Rin mutters to Haruka, nudging Gou aside with his hip so he, too, can peer into the refrigerator. Gou reaches up and swats the back of his head, then throws open a cabinet instead.

" _Obviously_ what Mark-san said is true, and you don't know how to enjoy a true American breakfast," she says, pushing a frying pan into Haruka's arms and pointing him toward the stove.

"You need to stop butting into our Skype calls."

"Aw, but it's so cute that you Skype with your friends."

"A monster," Rin reiterates, much louder.

Haruka falls into their routine as naturally as if it were his own. Gou tells them what to cook and they cook it, while she carves fruit into shapes. As bacon splutters in the pan, Haruka catches a glimpse through the window of a group of children on their way to the beach, one of them carrying a giant beach ball over their head.

"Are those supposed to be cute?" Rin is looking askance at the mangled strawberries Gou arranges on a plate.

Gou gives him a threatening look, but then lifts her chin and says coolly, "No, they're supposed to look exactly how they look. Pay attention to the eggs, Nii-san, I don't want them to turn out like rubber."

Haruka enjoys breakfast immensely, and especially enjoys listening to Rin and Gou bickering throughout. The way they pick on each other is full of affection, and fills the house with life. It's nothing like mealtime at home, and nothing like mealtime at Makoto's, either. The Matsuoka siblings have something all of their own, and it's hard not to smile in the face of it.

"Haruka-senpai, I swear," Gou says, pushing a hand into Rin's face to stop him mid-sentence. She waves her fork at Haruka over a potted succulent – it looks like she's been smuggling more home. "If you tell me that that is not the most delicious thing you've ever eaten, I will – I'll –"

Rin snickers. "Oh wow, threatening."

"I'll take the rest off your plate!"

Haruka takes a bite of bacon drenched in syrup and says simply, "It's good." Gou groans in frustration.

"Don't tell her," Rin says to him later, when they're heading up to his room, "but I love that stuff. But, you know, gotta keep up appearances. It's sweet," he adds with a laugh, in response to Haruka's questioning look.

There are green sticky notes all over Rin's room, one affixed to nearly every surface. The door, the bed frame, the desk, the closet... Haruka turns slowly, taking in the scene.

"It's so I remember everything I need," Rin says. A suitcase sits half-packed on his bed, and another sticks out from underneath. Haruka reads the note on his closet door: _running jacket, new shoes, green hat, socks?_

"Socks?"

"Yeah, I lose them. But I can't remember how many I lost. Oh, Haru." Haruka turns, and Rin presses a quick kiss to his lips.

"For yesterday, at the station," Rin says. He flutters his fingers over Haruka's cheek. "Aw, are you blushing?"

"Stop being stupid," Haruka says, pushing his hand away.

Rin kisses him again, quickly and shamelessly. "Help me pack and I'll try."

Packing with Rin is like sitting through a tedious geometry lesson. Everything Rin wants to take with him must fit into both suitcases, so he has Haruka folding some shirts one way, and rolling others up another way, and laying others flat yet another way on top of everything else.

"Why do you only have shirts?" Haruka asks, when he realizes he's folded at least a dozen in a row.

Rin is arranging long-sleeved items into stacks on the floor around him, both arms covered in green sticky notes. "I don't. The other suitcase is for everything else. And don't worry, we'll have room for some shoes in that one too."

"Don't you already have clothes over there?"

"Yeah, but I brought a lot back and need to bring new ones over." Rin crosses something off of one of the sticky notes, then moves it from his arm to his forehead. "It's a new school year, Haru. I can't just keep wearing the same things."

Haruka raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

"Nii-san!" Gou calls from downstairs. "Are you getting ready? You didn't forget, did you?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold on," Rin calls back. "We're meeting Mom in town," he says to Haruka, and then, trying not to look too hopeful, he adds, "Can I stay over tonight?"

"Of course," Haruka says. He reaches over and pokes a finger into Rin's cheek. "Aw, are you blushing?"

Rin's eyes bug, and he starts laughing. "Shit, you're getting good at this."

"Nii-san!" Gou calls again. Her footsteps come up the stairs, and Haruka and Rin spring apart.

* * *

Rin arrives well after dinner, with a single ring of the doorbell that Haruka was waiting impatiently for.

The porchlight glows around Rin when Haruka opens the door, and he's hit with the memory of their first kiss, the disaster of it right on that step. But that time the sky had been dark as pitch, and now the edges cling to the last dregs of sunlight.

"Hey," Rin says.

"Hey," Haruka says back, stepping aside to let him in. "Did you finish packing?"

"Yeah, all set." The small talk is stilted, and there are zero days left. Rin wastes no time pulling Haruka into his arms. "I'm going to miss you."

Another memory floods in, that of the goodbye that took place right in this entranceway one whole summer ago. Only this time Haruka isn't wet from the bath, and Rin's tears aren't hot against his skin. But Rin speaks into his neck, just like that time.

"I'm gonna have to leave really early to get home in time. My flight's in the morning."

"The trains won't be running."

"It's fine. I'll walk. Or run. Could use the exercise, I'll be on a plane forever."

Back then, Haruka had hugged Rin tentatively. Now, he does so fiercely, and all for himself. Five months – five _months_ – until December. How will he be able to stand five months without Rin? They've come so far in a year, standing in the same place but with hearts that have grown so much. It almost feels like too much, if all that growth has allowed for the ache he feels now.

"You can text me as much as you want. Or I'll find out how my phone data works and you can call me. Or I'll get out my computer and we can video chat."

Rin's fingers dig into his shoulder blades. "Can we just go to bed?"

They go upstairs, climb beneath the sheets, and immediately pull each other close again. Rin hasn't started crying, and Haruka is a little bit amazed. The emotions are raw enough, their arms needy enough for each other, the farewell looming low enough over them, but Rin has kept it together. Haruka is grateful, because it means he has, too.

They are a tangle of limbs, legs slid together, Haruka lying both in Rin's arms and on them. His head is tucked beneath Rin's chin, his forehead tucked against Rin's chest. Maybe, if their limbs all fall asleep, their minds will be able to as well. He sees no other way.

"Haru?"

Haruka feels too heavy with sadness to even talk, but he forces sound out of this throat. "What?"

It takes a very long time for Rin to answer, and when he does, his voice is full of nerves. "Honestly… Honestly, you probably think the first time I confessed to you was when you were giving me back that necklace, but…I kinda did before that."

"What do you mean?"

Rin pulls back enough to meet Haruka's eyes. "It wasn't an accident," he says, hushed in the twilight. "I didn't forget the necklace at the end of summer. I gave it to you."

Waking up with the blanket pulled over him. Finding Rin's necklace lost in the folds. Falling back asleep with it held tight in his hands. Haruka remembers it all.

"I didn't – I didn't think it'd actually mean anything to you," Rin says. "But for me it was a way I could give you some of my feelings while still being a coward about it. It was getting so hard to hide it around you."

Haruka can hardly draw a breath. His heart beats at his ribcage, sore and bruising. "How long?" he whispers.

"So, so long."

Another pang in Haruka's chest. "I gave it back to you."

Rin breathes out a laugh. "At least you didn't forget about it. I thought you'd forget."

Haruka shakes his head. _I couldn't forget,_ he thinks, chest too tight for words. _I missed you for two months._

Rin swallows loudly. "When I gave you the necklace the first time, you didn't feel the same way, but now it's different. So if I give it to you again now, will you take it?"

"Yes."

Rin disentangles himself and clambers out of bed like he'd been waiting for the cue, like he's propelled by springs rather than his own muscles. He goes over to his pile of clothes on Haruka's desk and takes something from their midst.

"It's stupid," he says, the bed dipping and shifting under his weight as he climbs back on. "It's just a dumb necklace. It's not even something special. I know you don't even wear this kind of shit. But, I dunno, I just –"

"Rin. I want it."

"Okay," Rin says, voice small. "Come here."

Haruka sits up, and then lowers his head so Rin can reach around him.

"Shit," Rin whispers to himself, taking a long time with the clasp. His fingers fumble against Haruka's neck again and again, until finally the shark tooth slips beneath the collar of Haruka's shirt and settles against his chest. "Okay, there."

Haruka takes it out, holds it in his palm. He looks from the tooth to Rin, and croaks out a "Thank you."

Rin smiles, then presses that smile to Haruka's, then presses Haruka into the pillows. He hums, and pulls away enough to look down at Haruka. "Jeez, it's like I'm living in a dream."

Haruka touches Rin's cheek. He feels the same.

Rin opens his mouth, then hesitates. He's on the verge of saying something else, but closes his lips before it can get out. He leans down and kisses Haruka again, long and slow, melting against him when Haruka's arms loop around his neck.

"You don't have to wear it every day, by the way," he says during a break in the kiss.

"I will."

Haruka feels the smile when Rin's lips are back on his, feels his own heart bursting with joy. This is better than any dream, this vividness of emotion that only reality can hold.

Rin eventually rolls off of him and pulls him close by the hip. He presses a kiss to Haruka's shoulder, and then another, and then another. With a sigh, he finally settles. "Night, Haru."

And maybe this is a dream because it's so bittersweet, the type of reality that will be over all too soon. Haruka covers Rin's hand with his own and squeezes tight.

"Goodnight, Rin."

* * *

He wakes up to daylight, and the sound of birds, and rising over that a stampede of children running down the stone steps outside, whooping and laughing as they go. He rolls over to Rin's side of the bed, spreading his limbs into the coolness, and feels something on his forehead. It sticks when he tries to brush it off. The second time, it sticks to his hand.

How like Rin, to play a prank on him before leaving. A smile pulls at Haruka's mouth, but he still doesn't want to open his eyes. He tries to remember Rin's hand on his hip, Rin's lips against his shoulder. Already, the sensations are fading from memory.

The green sticky note is perched on the back of his hand, a blur the first few times he blinks. He brings it close to his face, squinting through the bleariness of sleep as slowly, and then all too suddenly, the characters become clear.

_I love you._

His throat burns, his eyes prick. The world stands still for a moment.

And then he brings the note to his chest, presses it against his heart. He curls in on himself, the paper crumpling in his fingers. Nothing has ever hurt so much.


	19. Horizon (Summer-Fall-Winter interlude)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Once again, and as always, thank you so much for your patience. It was a long wait this time, approaching one year. A lot has happened to me in this past year. The biggest thing being I landed myself a job that I couldn't have even dreamed of having a year ago. I'm busier than I've been in a very long time, but also happier than I've been in years. I'm twenty-five now, and I began writing this fic when I was…twenty-one? I've changed a lot over these years, and the course of this fic has changed alongside that, though the core, the heart of it, has remained much the same.
> 
> Adulthood and life is still a very big, complex, overwhelming, scary thing for me, and I don't think I'll ever truly know what I'm doing. That anxiety, the feeling of being overwhelmed and confused and daunted by growing up, is something I wanted to address in this fic through Haruka's journey from the very beginning. And now I feel like I'm in a place in my life where I can truly finish up this fic in a meaningful and honest way. There are four more chapters to go, with the wiggle room an outline allows for. I hope you're looking forward to the end of Haru's journey in Long Distance, because I am, and I'm so excited for the ending I have planned.
> 
> For those of you who have stuck with me this long, thank you! For those of you who have stuck with this fic for any length of time, thank you! Anybody new – thank you! Thanks for reading my writing and leaving comments. As a writer, there is nothing that makes me happier than knowing that a piece of my writing has resonated with readers, that it's meant something to them, some sort of solace or enjoyment, maybe guidance, maybe just some laughs or smiles or tears or feels. I love writing, and writing this fic has been one of the most rewarding (albeit tiring at times) experiences of my life. So, once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and let's get back to business!

_I'm here,_ Rin texts when he lands. It arrives at six in the morning, and Haruka sees it at seven.

_Good morning,_ he texts back, getting out of bed, necklace dangling from his neck. He slips it under his shirt, the weight of it new and distracting, but he already feels so protective of it.

The reply comes when he's tying his shoelaces. _More like good afternoon. What are you doing right now?_

_Running. Then going to work._

_Okay,_ Rin says. _I'll text you later._

Haruka thinks of the sticky note on his desk, and feels a flurry in his chest. One part excitement, two parts _Was I supposed to say it back?_ But no, no. He's not ready. Rin will understand.

He opens the door and steps into the tepid air, lets his lungs expand with it. The necklace thumps against his chest as he runs, an answering knock to the beat in his chest. There's time, there's plenty of time, to figure out a reply.

In the meanwhile, they keep texting. They don't have conversations every single day, but Rin is busy and Haruka makes himself as busy as possible. Sometimes a _Good morning_ or a _Sleep well_ is the extent of things. It's more than enough on the busiest days.

The summer rains come to an end, leaving things smelling musty for a while, and then even their afterthought is gone from the air. So too ends the first session of swimming lessons. All of Haruka's favorites continue on for a second session – Kasuko with her butterfly earrings, Asuka and Chou with their twin goggles (but Haruka can tell the girls apart by now), Taiki who still tries to direct the lessons as much as ever, and timid Noboru who learns slowly but surely. Mei – who seems to have lost a new tooth every week – and her friend Yumiko have moved up from the beginner to intermediate level, and are exceptionally proud of themselves.

"They all asked to be grouped with you," Kaji-san tells Haruka with a wink, as Haruka's on his way out one afternoon. "You've sure got yourself a little bunch of admirers."

Hiro ends up back with Zaki, which means Haruka gets to ignore her teasing that Hiro likes her better.

Between lessons, Haruka practices with Zaki and Amano, and some of those days Shimamura shows up and gets in the pool with them, or just bugs them into getting lunch with him. Now that Shimamura's on summer break, on the days he doesn't coach lessons, his dance crew meets in the gym during public hours to work on their routines.

"It was _really_ painful," Shimamura pouts today, bottom lip stuck out in exaggeration, the corners of his mouth glistening with plum sauce. It's one of the days they're all at lunch together and Shimamura has inhaled three of the plates of food they're all meant to be sharing. He's dyed his hair recently – a vivid, magenta pink, like new spring flowers or a dollop of cake frosting. It's so eye-catching it almost hurts. It's very fitting.

"Oh no, you poor thing," Zaki deadpans at him through a mouth of cold noodles.

"Amano, it looks painful, right?" Shimamura asks, holding his arm out over the table. His elbow is bright red, soon to bruise black and blue. Haruka had caught a few glimpses of his crew practicing today, of Shimamura doing some truly gravity-defying moves, all sharp popping and locking and practically throwing his body through the air and against the floor.

"It does," Amano says, in that low voice of his that makes it so hard to tell if he's being serious or not.

" _Thank_ you," Shimamura breathes out, pleased to finally have some consolation. He grins. "You know what would make it feel better?" He sticks his elbow beneath Zaki's nose. "A kiss!"

She makes a face, truly disgusted but also just for show.

"Eh? Eh? No?" Shimamura sticks his arm toward Amano again. "Amano?"

Amano reaches for a dumpling, tucking a lock of hair gracefully behind his ear with his other hand so it doesn't trail in the food. "Ask Nanase," he says. Shimamura sighs.

Later, they go their separate ways at the train station, and Haruka rides home thinking once again about how much he _likes_ them, likes being their friend, likes that they like him too.

So the days pass pretty okay.

_I love you,_ the note says, every day Haruka looks at it (which is every day). The butterflies calm after the third or fourth day, because as monumental as the characters are, they become just that – characters on a green post-it note. It's when he thinks of them in Rin's voice, or when he thinks of what Rin must have looked like scrawling them in the dark, the look Rin must have had on his face when he stuck it to Haruka's forehead – it's thinking of those small, soft things that makes the flurry in Haruka's chest and the pit of his stomach come alive again.

_I love you,_ the note says. Sometimes, in moments before he catches himself, he touches the pad of his finger to the writing, but it doesn't feel like anything underneath his skin.

He puts the note on his desk, then in his desk drawer, then back on his desk, then beneath a notebook. He likes seeing it, but seeing it makes him nervous. He still hasn't replied. But he and Rin text ( _I just bought ice cream,_ Rin says. _Eat it carefully. Don't hurt your teeth,_ Haruka sends back. _Okay, dork,_ Rin replies, and Haruka smiles to himself for minutes on end). Even though he knows it isn't something you can really tell over text, it doesn't seem like Rin is waiting for a reply.

Summer continues to pass. The note becomes dog-eared and worn, like a treasure made smoother with age and handling.

Rei visits for a few days at the end of July, all the hustle and bustle of a quick visit before he has to return to Tokyo for some summer research project with a select group of first-year students over the break. He stays long enough for Nagisa's birthday, though, and this is the most important thing of all.

It's after a lot of food, when they're all slumped on the floor at Haruka's place, during Rei's story about how he got lost in the bio-chem branch of one of the new buildings on campus a few weeks ago, that Nagisa pipes up, "Haru-chan, isn't that Rin-chan's?"

He's pointing at the necklace that has slipped out of the collar of Haruka's shirt, and he's all round-eyed innocence that Haruka can see right through – that smile has just too much of a perceptive edge to it.

"Oh," Haruka says, and because he doesn't want to bother thinking of a lie, he says simply, "Yeah, it is."

There's just a split-second, not even of silence, but of the gears in all their brains working. He almost wishes someone would ask, but he doesn't know exactly what, and he knows it'd be mortifying anyway. Gou is there, after all. Her head is cocked to the side, a slight crinkle on her forehead. A look that says _Huh, how curious._

But then the split-second is over and Nagisa lets out a little "Hm" sound, kind of intrigued and amused but not interested enough to push it (or at least he's pretending, so he can smoothly change the topic).

Gou watches Haruka a lot more for the rest of the day. He probably shouldn't have worn the necklace, but Rin asked him to. He doesn't think it'd be a big deal if their friends found out, but he can't help the slightest what-if of worry.

When Gou and Nagisa head off later, their two petite forms heading down the stairs together, shoulders knocking, Rei stays behind for a bit. He mostly helps clean up even though Haruka says he doesn't have to, but it's comfortable having him around.

After things are tidied up, they head back outside to sit on the steps and stare down at the ocean. The sun is starting to sink, reflected as a great orange globe on the darkening water's surface. Haruka and Rei sit side by side, in a silence that has settled easily.

Finally, Rei says, "It's really odd, being back here. I never realized how quiet it was until I got used to Tokyo's noise."

"That sounds like a headache," Haruka says.

Rei laughs, closed-mouth and quiet. "Actually, it really isn't. It's alive, and somehow, it's home." He looks at Haruka, glasses catching the late light. There's a smile on his lips. "I actually think you might like it, Haruka-senpai."

Haruka thinks he's out of his mind, but doesn't say so.

* * *

Makoto leaves for his exchange at the end of August, with little fanfare. His flight is early in the morning, and Haruka goes running a little earlier than usual to be able to say goodbye. They cross paths on the stairway, the sky hazy with early light, the sea fresh. Haruka's going up, breathless, and Makoto is coming down with his mom, nervousness and excitement all over him. They look at each other for a moment, and then Makoto drops his bags and pulls Haruka into a hug.

"Have a safe flight," Haruka says into a faceful of Makoto's jacket.

"That isn't really up to me," Makoto says, sounding amused and pulling Haruka in tighter.

Haruka props his chin on Makoto's shoulder, shutting his eyes for a moment. Makoto turns his head, nose pushing against the side of Haruka's neck. Haruka's heart misses one beat, and this is a moment of panic – the thought that Makoto won't be here if, _when,_ Haruka needs him. Makoto will be gone, an ocean away, and Haruka will be the only one left. He won't be able to just walk over and knock on Makoto's door and have him appear there on the other side.

For a moment, a fathomless pit of isolation opens beneath Haruka's feet. But then Makoto squeezes him tighter still, grounding him.

_It'll be fine,_ he tells himself.

And then, like Makoto can read his mind, he says to Haruka, "Don't worry about yourself too much when I'm gone."

"I will," Haruka says. He hears and feels Makoto's chuckle. "Don't worry too much, either," he says back. "And have fun."

Makoto pulls back, gives him an anxious little smile. "I'll do my best."

Makoto flies away, and a few days later Zaki tries out for and makes it onto the swim team she's been eyeing. Haruka feels happy for her, and inadequate, and the voice inside of him that's terrified of falling behind grows more frightened still.

Summer lessons come to an end about as soon as they started, the second session seeming to span as long as it takes for Haruka to blink once. He gets offered a job doing after school swim lessons during the school year, and tells Kaji-san he'll think about it. That gives him a couple of weeks.

That night, he gets back in the tub for the first time in a very, very long time. It doesn't give him any clarity. The water grows tepid, then cold. He lifts his hand out, watches the water stream through his fingers until there's a shallow pool in his palm, which he tips over and lets splash back into the tub. The drip-drop echoes but offers little solace. He wonders if this means he's grown up, or grown jaded, or some awful combination of the two.

Rin would know what to say. Haruka misses him. Misses his presence, his voice, his laugh. Misses his arms, the feel of them around him. Misses his mouth, hot and slick. He misses the pink of Rin's cheeks when they've been kissing.

He lets himself slip under the water, so that his ears fill with that muffled, other-worldly sound of nothingness.

_I love you,_ the note says, once more on the corner of his desk, when he returns to his room.

Before going to bed, he takes out his phone and types, _I want to see you._ He sends it to Rin, then dives into bed and doesn't check for a response until the next morning.

* * *

The laptop has lived at the bottom of his desk drawer since he started at the community college, which really does feel like a lifetime ago. It's been so long since he last used it, but before he knows it the video call is up and running, the screen black and the dial tone tolling, until…

"Hey," Rin says.

His image pops up a moment later. He looks tired, some shadows under his eyes but not too bad. A thin sweater, low cut and draping attractively from his shoulders. A beanie in his hair. He's in his room, looks like he's just returned from class. He looks cozy, and Haruka's already smiling.

"Hi."

"What's up?" Rin asks, sweeping the beanie off his head, and then sweeping his hand through his hair, pulling it back off his forehead.

Just seeing him puts Haruka at ease. He suddenly doesn't want to bring up any worries, doesn't want to talk about _things_ , just wants to talk. And if this isn't a sign that he's grown up and grown different, he doesn't know what is.

"Nothing much," he says. "It's just quiet around here."

"Really? I'd expect Ren and Ran to be barging into your place all the time, now that they don't have Makoto around to keep them in check."

Haruka snorts out a laugh. "That hasn't happened yet."

"I talked to Makoto the other day," Rin says, scrubbing his hand through his hair again, then down his face. Haruka wants to reach through the screen, touch his cheeks, cup them in his palms. "His English is already getting better."

"Soon you'll be able to hold secret conversations in front of me."

"Hardly," Rin says. "No offense to him."

"How's swimming?"

Rin's face lights up. "Meets are starting up soon. The team looks great –"

There's a noise off-screen, something like a click or a clatter, and Rin looks over and sighs. Suddenly, a familiar face pushes Rin out of the shot, and a dimpled smile fills the screen.

"Who is it?" Mark asks (and Haruka understands this much), before letting out a short laugh of recognition. "Oh, Haruka!" he says, with a soft R and a loud exclamation. And then it's babble Haruka doesn't understand until Rin pushes Mark out of the shot and grimaces at Haruka.

"I ended up with this idiot as a roommate again."

Mark asks a question, stooped over behind Rin, hands on the back of his chair. He keeps nudging Rin's shoulder, his grin one of truly Nagisa-like proportions.

"Ignore him," Rin says a little bit desperately. "He's just a pain in the ass, as always."

"Did you ask to room with him again?" Haruka asks.

Still looking pained, Rin says, "A moment of poor judgement."

Haruka snorts. Mark asks several questions, shaking Rin back and forth by the shoulders. Rin's head is in his hands.

Once Mark is gone, Rin lets out the longest sigh Haruka's ever heard, but the corners of his mouth fight a smile. He's tired, but he's happy. Haruka's heart feels warm.

Warmer still when Rin folds his arms on his desk, rests his chin on them, and says plaintively, "Haru, I'm breaking out."

"What do you mean?"

"My face. Look." Rin points to two red bumps on his forehead, one on his cheek. "Like, this doesn't _happen_ to me."

"Are you stressed?"

"I don't even know! Like, not any more than usual, I don't think." Rin burrows his chin in his arms, sulky.

"You still look nice," Haruka says. "I still like your face."

"Good," Rin mumbles. "Because I don't."

Haruka rolls his eyes. "Your face is cute." It wins him the corner of Rin's smile, just peeking above his arms.

"Yeah?"

"Just a little bit."

Rin buries his entire face in his arms, ears visibly pink despite the connection's less than perfect picture quality. Haruka's entire body feels so light.

They talk about nothing much for a long time, and it's so, so easy. When they say goodbye, that's miraculously easy as well. Rin smiles, and waves, and cuts the connection, and Haruka's already looking forward to the next time.

That night, he goes over to the Tachibanas' and rings the doorbell. The twins are ecstatic, and invite him inside to play video games and watch TV with them, and once dinner rolls around Haruka is invited to stay longer. It's an evening that passes so pleasantly, the events of it are one blur of happiness in his head that, when he gets back to his room that night, he can't pick apart from each other.

And there, on his phone that he left on his desk, is a text from Rin:

_Good night._

* * *

He accepts the job, and gets a raise on top of it. He still does stuff around the rec center on days he doesn't lead lessons – office work, cleaning, organizing, helping plan events. It keeps his body busy and his thoughts occupied, but it still doesn't feel quite right.

He and Makoto talk, free long distance calls through their messenger apps, when Makoto's on his way to class in the mornings. Makoto says the town he's staying in is similar to Iwatobi in the sense that it's quiet, but different in the sense that he just has to walk a little while, maybe fifteen minutes, and he's in the city, and just a little while longer still to really be in the thick of it.

He says it's a chillier October in England than in Iwatobi. The air smells like trees rather than the sea, smells smokey after rainfall. They usually talk as Haruka's heading down the steps for his run, and he'll often sit at the bottom for a little while as they catch up. Makoto enjoys his classes, enjoys the people, enjoys the food, though there's a little bit of homesickness in everything. Mostly excitement, he assures Haruka, and then, as an afterthought: "Don't try fish pie, though."

Haruka listens to Makoto's soft voice on the line and imagines cobblestone streets, stone walls with vines crawling slowly over them, narrow houses shouldered together, the persistent smell of oil and dust on damp roads, the cool caress of gray-skies on his cheeks. He doesn't really know if any of this is England, but there's a magical, mystical feel to everything he hears so these are the images Makoto's tales evoke in his mind.

Sometimes he has dreams of these places – quiet lanes turning suddenly into the middle of a bustling city that looks a lot like Tokyo. Or he'll dream of sitting on the steps outside of one of those narrow houses, stately bricks at his back, smoke puffing out of a fireplace and rain clouds puffing by overhead.

Tonight it's a Tokyo dream. He walks down the steps from his house, walks past the beach, following an inexplicable feeling that he just _has_ to walk. The lights in the windows guide the way, floating among the darkness. His dream self knows that even if he turns around, he'll end up in the same place regardless, so he follows his feet to the train station. The train arrives without a sound, just a warm gust of air as it speeds to a stop, and the glow of its window lights. The doors open silently. His feet on the steps are silent.

And then he's in the middle of a busy intersection flooded with pedestrians. He can only be surprised for one second, because again, he feels the need to walk, so walk he does. There still isn't any noise, but the _sight_ of everything is loud. So many people moving, so many signs flashing, so many windows glinting. Street performers play their instruments and do their dances to mute soundtracks, but Haruka's head is so full of sound.

He wakes up to the dead of night, and the faint rush of the ocean. He feels so _awake_ that he gets out of bed without a second thought, his feet touching down on the cool floor. A glance at his phone says that it's a little after four in the morning – a little after eight in the evening for Makoto.

Without pausing to think about it, Haruka sends him a message – _Are you busy?_

Makoto doesn't text back as quickly as Rin ever does, but it's still only a few minutes later, as Haruka is nibbling on a piece of toast in the kitchen, that his phone buzzes on the counter and the screen lights up.

_Nope, just finished my homework._

Haruka calls him, and this time it's only seconds later than Makoto replies. A warm, amused, "Good night, Haru."

Haruka rolls his eyes, breathes his laugh into the speaker, and heads outside, a light jacket donned.

The ocean is at one of its high tides, waves crashing in and rushing back out, sucking the sand with it. Haruka sits at the bottom of the steps facing the beach, slightly chilled by the night air. On the way down he told Makoto about the dream, about the last few days, about nothing much but Makoto can always tell what's on his mind.

"I thought I told you not to worry about yourself," Makoto says, sounding like he's smiling, but the smile he uses to try to hide his concern, which only makes it more obvious.

"I'm not," Haruka says. "Not really. Not worrying."

"No great moments of enlightenment?"

Haruka kicks a pebble from between his feet, the sole of his shoe scuffing on the concrete. "No, nothing like that."

Makoto hums. "I haven't had any either, if that makes you feel better."

"I'm not worrying," Haruka reiterates. He breathes in the sea air, finds it so soothing even after all these years of living beside it. "I'm just, I don't know…"

"Bored?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Try something new?"

They both chuckle at that. "Revolutionary advice," Haruka says.

"Sorry, I wasn't prepared to give advice tonight."

"Good." Haruka leans back against the steps, lets his legs sprawl out before him. "I don't want any. How's England?"

"It's good. Cold. Different. I feel very worldly."

"You and Rin have that in common now."

Makoto laughs.

Haruka yawns, head tipping back because of the knee-jerk tears that form in his eyes. It suddenly feels like four in the morning, his head heavy and eyelids heavier.

Makoto talks a bit more about his day at school, and Haruka mumbles some replies until Makoto tells him that he really should get back to sleep.

"Where are you, by the way?" Makoto asks. "I keep hearing something in the background."

"I'm down by the beach. I was walking down when I called you. It's high tide."

Makoto sighs. "I miss the ocean."

"You're on another island," Haruka points out, through another yawn. And then he yawns out, "Just go to the nearest beach with some friends."

"Haru, seriously, go to bed. You're making me feel guilty."

"No I'm not," Haruka says, but he gets to his feet nonetheless. His limbs are leaden as they carry him back upstairs. He mumbles out his goodbye and hangs up at his door. Inside, he's asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

In the morning he hardly remembers the call, but he feels that inexplicable tug, like he needs to follow his feet somewhere only, in his wakefulness, they don't know where to go.

* * *

"So," Zaki says, twirling up some udon noodles. She slurps them, takes several moments to chew and swallow. Dabs at her mouth with the back of her wrist. "So, how's life?"

"I don't know," Haruka says. He twirls up some ramen noodles, slurps them, takes several moments to chew and swallow. "It's fine doing more lessons for now, but…" He shrugs, and Zaki hums in understanding.

It's a Saturday, so the restaurant is fuller than average, families and friends enjoying the good weather and a bite to eat. The trees are turning color and the air is still warm, though sometimes a breeze whips up over the sea, a surprising burst of freshness to remind them all what's coming soon. Haruka eyes the horizon a lot more these days, not looking for winter but just looking far away, thinking about distance in general and his quiet existence in Iwatobi, and maybe just starting to realize he feels caged by all that peace and quiet.

"How's the swim team?" he asks, tearing his gaze away from the window.

Zaki finishes up another mouthful of udon, rubs her wrist across her mouth. She doesn't mind the silence between them, doesn't mind him spacing out. He likes that about her, that she doesn't need to talk.

"It's nice," she says. "It feels weird being on a team again, but nice." She shrugs. "We're not that good, but…"

"Are you the best on the team?"

She grins. "You better fucking believe it."

There's a flurry of greetings from the entrance, heralding Shimamura and Amano's arrival. Shimamura blusters up to the table, pink hair like a flurry of flower blossoms through the restaurant. Amano follows a few paces behind, hands in his pockets.

The first thing Shimamura says, after dropping down into the chair beside Haruka, is "You didn't get pork!"

And Haruka forgets, for a while longer, the urge to follow his feet somewhere he doesn't know.

* * *

Weeks pass and pass and pass. It's amazing how quickly time goes by despite feeling so slow in the day-to-day. One moment, it's the beginning of October. The next, mid-November. Maybe it's the sameness of the days that make them pass by so quickly. Nothing distinguishing one from the other, the easy slip of routine, blurring time into an inevitable sliding-by thing.

The text from Rin comes as he's walking up the steps back home. It's an odd time – Rin should be sleeping. When Haruka checks his phone, the message reads, _Are you busy right now?_

_I'm not,_ he sends back, and is hit with an immediate reply.

_I can't sleep. Are you home?_

_In a minute,_ Haruka sends back, and he climbs the steps a little faster.

He keeps his computer on his desk now, so it's ready and working in minutes. _Okay,_ he texts Rin, and a few seconds later he has an incoming call. He feels a frisson of excitement, and connects.

Rin appears, looking tired and bedraggled. He's wearing an old Samezuka sweatshirt, and his hair is mussed like he's been tossing and turning, but he smiles when he sees Haruka. Haruka wants to reach out and touch him, hug him, anything. His heart is clenching hard.

"How early is it?" he asks, keeping his voice down. The room Rin is in is unfamiliar and dimly lit.

"Not too bad, around seven," Rin says. The screen shifts, and Haruka realizes his laptop must be in his lap. "M'in the lounge 'cause Mark's still asleep. Hold up, lemme put in my headphones."

Haruka watches Rin slip a pair of headphones over his ears, turning his head to the side in a yawn as he does so. When he looks back at Haruka, Haruka thinks he sees a lot of the same emotions in the way Rin looks at him – wanting to reach out, to feel, to be close. He sees it in the fondness in Rin's eyes as he smiles tiredly.

Haruka wants to kiss him, bury his nose in his hair, hold him. It really is starting to hurt these days. Separation is such a physical sensation.

"So," Rin starts, sleepy smile still in place. "Remember that idiot it my geology class I was telling you about?"

Haruka chuckles. "The one with the backpack full of bananas?" At Rin's nod, he says, "What now?"

Rin launches into a story about spilled takeout, screaming girls, and a beleaguered professor, his voice held low in the early hour. He makes himself laugh, so amused by his own story – and it's a breathy giggle, makes his eyes shine and his cheeks flush. His voice is soft and steals into Haruka's room, into Haruka, like a layer of padding around his heart, making him feel soft through and through.

Later Rin gets talking about Gou, and about Nagisa, about how he's been speaking a lot to them both – which is normal and not that worth mentioning, so Haruka knows something is coming up.

"Haru…don't call me crazy…"

"Hm?" Haruka hums, cheek resting in his palm. He knows he must look the picture of fondness right now, but that soft feeling has spread throughout his whole body, too enjoyable to resist.

Rin's face scrunches up a little bit, a grimace. "I think, like, they like each other?"

"Who?"

"Nagisa and Gou."

"Well, yeah, they're friends."

"Haru, come on." Rin rolls his eyes. _"Like_ each other. Like you and me."

"Oh." Haruka frowns, remembers Gou and Nagisa heading down the stairs together, shoulder to shoulder. _Maybe_ , he thinks. "Is that bad?"

"It's not," Rin's saying, expression still a little scrunched, a look of big-brother uncertainty. "It's just _weird_. But I guess if I had to trust one of you with her, it would surprisingly be him? God, maybe I'm crazy just for thinking that."

"You wouldn't trust me with her?"

"Haru." Rin gives him a level stare. "If you'd ever gotten together with Gou I'd have been A, out of my mind jealous, and B, out of my mind bitter, and C, out of my mind fucking sad."

Haruka laughs under his breath, lowers his eyes for a moment. When he meets Rin's again, Rin is looking at him straight on and silent, a little bit dazed, like he's just waking up. Like Haruka had just done something to steal his breath, when all he'd done was laugh a little bit.

"I miss you," Rin says.

And there it is – the _thump kick thump_ of Haruka's heartbeat starting to trip over itself, lose its steady rhythm. He takes Rin in again. His messy hair, his sleepy eyes, his jaw, his chin, his left earlobe, his right nostril, everything. And god, it hurts.

"I miss you too."

"One more month," Rin says, words so quiet, the hush that comes before you kiss someone. Haruka imagines it so vividly – Rin being right here, whispering something in the second before their lips touch.

_I can't stop thinking about kissing you,_ Haruka almost says. _I think about it all the time. I've never longed for something like this before. I don't know what to do with myself._

He swallows. "Yeah, one more month." He clears his throat, needs to find something else to say. Rin's gaze has gone deep, needy, a little bit tortured.

Haruka realizes he's seconds away from doing something stupid, from actually leaning closer and kissing his computer screen. Instead, he forces out a question: "How's swimming?"

He can actually _see_ Rin pull himself together, force those emotions into a neat little box for safe-keeping, for dealing with later.

Rin runs a hand through his hair, knocking his headphones askew. He rights them and says, with a lopsided smile that's still so wistful, "We've got invitationals coming up next week. Shouldn't be a big deal."

They say goodbye once the early risers start passing sporadically through the lounge. It's the toughest goodbye yet.

* * *

The rains come and go, a quick couple weeks of absolute downpours. And then the rains freeze up, the puddles on the roads turn to ice, and the skies turn a lighter shade of slate to match the ocean.

Makoto returns the week before Christmas, on the day of the first snowfall. The flakes come down whisper soft, and Makoto returns with just about as much fanfare. Haruka gets a text when Makoto lands, and then later when his doorbell rings, he knows exactly who it's going to be.

"Come over for dinner," Makoto says in a puff of white breath, with his easy smile and quiet words, and Haruka does. It's like no time has passed at all.

Afterwards, when they're sitting in Makoto's room munching on some apple slices his mother sent up, Makoto says, "Rin's coming back soon, too."

"Yeah." He's flying in on Christmas day, which, according to him (and Haruka believes him), is going to be hell on earth.

Makoto hums. "Too bad Rei's not going to make it."

"Yeah, he should really take a break."

"But I can't wait to see Nagisa and Gou again."

It hadn't really been weighing on Haruka's thoughts that much, but he has a feeling, an _urge_. He swallows and makes a very frightening decision.

"Makoto."

Makoto looks at him, eyebrows up.

"Me and Rin…" Haruka can't look away, tongue stuck, thoughts a helpless panic. He's counting on Makoto to understand, and of course Makoto does.

He gives a small smile, breathes out a quiet laugh, looks down at his lap. "Yeah, I thought so." After a few moments, he glances back at Haruka, and his smile is still there. "That's _good_ , Haru. I'm happy for you."

Haruka smiles down at his feet, says softly, "Thanks." Makoto's hand lands, warm and strong, on his shoulder, and gives a squeeze.

"Not to be nosy, but how long…?"

"Since the summer," Haruka says. "But…it's been a mess for longer."

Makoto laughs, a full, rich sound. "Do you two know how to be any other way with each other?"

* * *

Haruka doesn't expect to see Rin the day after Christmas. He flew in yesterday, texted Haru as soon as he was home: _It was even more hellish than I thought, babies and delays._

His next text came moments later, straight to the point. _Sleep._

So Haruka doesn't expect to see him today. Today's a day for Rin to relax and catch up with his family, and a day that Haruka spends with Makoto's.

It's a day of the television on in the background, of board games played on the floor and hot chocolate sipped from holiday mugs. Outside, snow drifts peacefully down. A perfect Christmas-morrow.

Haruka stays for dinner, and Mrs. Tachibana sends him home with the leftover hotpot, still warm, so she makes him wear her oven mitts to carry it with. At the door, Ren and Ran cling to Makoto's sides and grin up at Haruka – but they don't have to crane their necks as far back anymore. They're going through a growth spurt and Haruka hadn't even noticed it until now. "Come back tomorrow," Ran says, while Ren nods fervently. Haruka promises to return the oven mitts, and they complain that they mean for more than just _that._

Haruka bids them goodnight with a smile, and turns into the chilly air. The town is a scatter of lights in the night, the steps illuminated and orange-gray. The hotpot in his arms smells delicious, and even though he's full, he's contemplating having a few more bites before he puts it away.

He turns off the steps for his house, and goes still.

There, in the glow of his porchlight, bundled up tight and leaning back against the door, is Rin.

"Don't worry," Rin says, voice lifted slightly to cover the distance between them. "I haven't been waiting around. I just got here."

And it's like everything suddenly comes back into laser focus – like Haruka can see and hear and smell so much more vividly. Like the world is brighter despite the night, like the saturation is more intense. Like nothing in the past months mattered, compared to Rin being here, now, real and warm and so so close.

His feet move, knowing exactly where to go. He's wearing oven mitts and there's a hotpot in his arms but nothing matters because Rin is here.

"Oh yeah," Rin says, smiling wide as Haruka approaches – and that smile is breathtaking, Haruka forgets to take in air, can only think of kissing him again and again in the glow of his porchlight, soaking up his warmth and his smile and forgetting about everything else in the world. "I forgot to say it yesterday, but Merry Christmas."


End file.
